Identification Guides – Hemiptera

Printed

A Photographic Guide to the Shieldbugs and Squashbugs of the British Isles by Martin Evans & Roger Edmondson (WGUK in association with WILDGuides, 2005)

A Pocket Guide to the Shieldbugs & Leatherbugs of Britain & Ireland by Bryan J Pinchen (Forficula Books, 2009)

Shieldbugs of the British Isles Bernard Nau (FSC WildID Fold-out chart)

Land & Water Bugs of the British Isles by T R E Southwood & Dennis Leston (Warne 1959) is still useful.

Websites

Provisional Atlas of Shieldbugs and Allies Published – A text summary and map is provided for each species. Maps were produced using DMAP for Windows v7.4 and are based on a dataset of 50,000 records collated up to 2014, which formed the basis of the recent IUCN status review (Bantock, T. A review of the Hemiptera of Great Britain: The shieldbugs and allied families (Natural England 2016). Since 2014 one additional species has been added to the British list, the pentatomid Sciocoris homalonotus.

The British Bugs website describes itself as a ‘An online identification guide to British Hemiptera’. It contains superb photos of each species with summary information. The identification route is either through knowing the classification structure of the Systematic lists: Heteroptera, Auchenorryncha and Psylloidea (Sternorrhyncha) or simply by searching for similarity of appearance with the photos in the Gallery. 

Heteroptera of the British Isles Flickr photos: Bob Ryan 

Google Lens: Go to google.com and there is a camera icon at the right of the search bar. Click on this, and you can drag and drop any image and it will do its best to identify it – so can be used for any flora and fauna, vertebrates and invertebrates etc. (as well as buildings, landscapes – anything, in fact.)  Worth a look, but treat identifications with caution!

Apps