Spiked Shieldbug

Name: Spiked Shieldbug

Scientific name: Picromerus bidens

Category: Minibeasts

Nature Stars: 50

What are nature stars?

About: The Spiked Shieldbug is a very impressive animal: 12mm in length, with bright red legs and antennae and a formidable pair of sharp spines on the ‘shoulders’, this is a predator, hunting for caterpillars and other soft larvae in scrubby meadows and heaths. The Spiked Shieldbug is one of our less frequently encountered species, partly because it avoids farmland and gardens and partly because, as a predator, it is never found in large numbers.

How to identify: One of a group of three brown shield bugs with shoulder 'spikes'. The Spiked Shieldbug is best told by the very pointed shoulder spikes and the bright orange legs and antennae.

Where: England and Wales, perhaps spreading into Scotland.

Natural Superpowers

• Predator: 70
• Agility: 50
• Rarity: 40
• Cute factor: 40
• Traveller: 20

Fantastic fact:

Photograph credit: Photo credit tbc