Ashott Barton

These little beetles played a part of my A-level Biology project and so I was really pleased to see them living here. They are an iridescent green with a purple shimmer and are about 8mm long. The females become bloated with eggs to the point their wing casing can no longer fit around them as they bulge becoming twice as big as the male before they lay their eggs.

The lava are completely black and like most of the insect kingdom quite unlike their adult form. Its at this stage in their life when they help us. They do considerable damage to the dock plants and weaken them. On their own however they are not enough to actually deal with the dock plants so topping is still needed.