Leptocoris mitellatus

LeptocorisLeptocoris mitellatus Leptocoris tagalicus

Author/Contributor Marc Newman ◦

Leptocoris mitellatus is one of the soapberry bugs found in Australia. It is in the same genus as the Boxelder Bug (Boisea trivittata), a species of true bug native to eastern North America.

Whilst they are an attractive looking bug, when they are appear in the thousands, especially when they are looking for a nice warm place to overwinter, such as within our homes, they are not so welcomed.

It is the adult female that likes to overwinters in a sheltered and comfortable environment. Come early spring, they will lay their eggs on the leaves of a host tree (such as Alders, Ash and Maple) in the yard, on which the nymphs will feed on the seed and leaves of the tree.

An interesting edited excerpt from a communication from Ken Walker of the Melbourne Museum follows.

“It’s a species of Leptocoris in the family Rhopalidae. There are three or four species in the genus in Australia and they all look very similar and overlap quite a bit… would guess that it is probably Leptocoris mitellatus Bregroth which is the common one in this neck of the woods. Gordon Gross has a 1960 key to spp in Rec.S A Mus 13:405-451. They all feed exclusively on the seeds of Sapindaceae which includes a lot of native trees and some decorative introduced street trees. When the trees shed their seeds to the ground there is often a massive build up in numbers of the bugs and people have them crawling everywhere on their washing and into their houses and it’s a common public enquiry in Brisbane…if you cross examine the people enough you can always narrow them down to a tree in the garden (often Cupaniopsis) which is seeding. There’s an introduced pest vine in the Sapindaceae (Cardiospermum grandiflorum) which now covers all the low vegetation along the banks of the Brisbane River…it’s called balloon vine because it’s fruit is a big hollow bladder (a bit like the balloons on Wanderer food plants in the Asclepiadaceae). The balloons have evolved to stop bugs being able to reach into the center with their rostrum to reach the seeds… there’s an American (Scott something, name escapes me)⁴ who has spent a coupla sabbaticals at UQ. In USA the vine is also a pest and he has documented increase in rostral length of their bugs there over time since the vine has been naturalised there and they can now reach the seeds. He has been looking at the situation here and he has got data which shows that the Aussie bugs are also getting longer rostrums since the vine has been here.”

The comment was made by a bug specialist, Dr Geoff Monteith² from Brisbane.

Author/Contributor Marc Newman / Photographs © Marc Newman

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• Scientific classification
• Kingdom: Animalia
• Phylum: Arthropoda
• Subphylum: Hexapoda
• Class: Insecta
• Informal: Pterygotes
• Order: Hemiptera
• Suborder: Heteroptera
• Infraorder: Pentatomomorpha
• Superfamily: Coreoidea
• Family: Rhopalidae
• Subfamily: Serinethinae
• Genus: Leptocoris
• Species: Leptocoris mitellatus

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LeptocorisLeptocoris mitellatus Leptocoris tagalicus

HemipteraIppatha australiensis Leptocoris Mictis profana (Crusader Bug) Reduviidae Assassin Bugs

InsectsBees Beetles Blattodea Butterflies Coleoptera Cicada Crabronidae Diptera Dragonflies & Damselflies Formicidae Hemiptera Heteroptera (True Bugs) Mango Planthopper Moths Orthoptera Orthopteroid Processionary Caterpillar Stink Bugs, Shield Bugs and Allies Syrphidae Wasps Water Scorpion (Laccotrephes tristis) Witchetty Grub