A familiar face but one that I hadn’t seen in the garden yet, the decorative Graphosoma lineatum ^[1] shieldbug.

From one day to the other three specimen had found the blooming Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) plant in the garden, one of their hostplants ^[2]. These bugs always remind me of warm summer holidays in Southern Europe, so finding them in the garden was a nice surprise although they are common in the Netherlands.

Two out of three I’ve seen mating, the third was just hanging around on the Fennel.

---

Literature

¹ Nederlands Soortenregister

² Binazzi, Francesco & Sabbatini Peverieri, Giuseppino & Simoni, Sauro & Frosinini, Riccardo & Fabbricatore, Tiziano & Roversi, Pio. (2015). An effective method for Graphosoma lineatum (L.) long-term rearing. Journal of Zoology.