New bug on the block
At the end of September, I found this insect ( pictured) on my window. I believe it to be an assassin bug, but did not know there were any large species of assassin bugs indigenous to Britain. Could it be a foreign invader? Graham Wildridge, Norfolk Editorial assistant Megan Shersby replies: This handsome insect is actually a western conifer seed bug, Leptoglossus occidentalis. In its native range of northern America, it is a pest of conifer seed nurseries, but there are no reports of damage in Europe, where it was accidentally introduced in the late 1990s. It was first detected in Britain in 2007, and I can remember finding one at Radnorshire Wildlife Trust’s Gilfach Nature Reserve in 2014 – one of the first to be recorded in the vice-county.