Species Account for Metopoplax ditomoides
PLEASE NOTE, many records in this group are not yet available
Metopoplax ditomoides (Costa, 1847)
Heteroptera: Lygaeidae
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Taxonomic group: true bugs (Heteroptera) - Available county data
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Species text
Metopoplax ditomoides is a small whitish and black groundbug found in dry places, usually amongst sparse vegetation. In Southwood & Leston (1959) it was considered a foreign, doubtfully British species, which had been recorded only once in Britain, presumably as a vagrant, as a single specimen on a rubbish tip in Hounslow, Middlesex. However it was already spreading from its western Mediterranean centre and had been discovered in Western Germany, the Netherlands and Jersey. Aukema (2004) writes about recent changes in the Dutch Heteroptera and notes a similar pattern of change as observed in British Heteroptera and involving a fair number of the same species including Metopoplax ditomoides. In Britain it has recently been found in north-west Kent (Clemons, 1998), it has been collected at West Thurrock PFA Lagoons in 2005, Pitsea in 2006 and several more new locations in the region. It has probably also been found at a number of other unpublished locations outside Essex.
In August 2018, it was recorded at a former sand/gravel pit at Wivenhoe, Colchester, in north-east Essex. In 2022, it was recorded from a brownfield site to the north of Chelmsford, this being one of the few inland Essex locations for this bug. References
Habitats
Recorded management for locations with Metopoplax ditomoides
Recorded substrate and hydrology for locations with Metopoplax ditomoides
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