Shieldbugs-from Nymph to sub-adult

Thank Tony for spotting and sharing this particular family of bugs, to Allan for sharing this STARBUG with me to record the molting process. We were shooting the same individual and I was shooting from the side.

1. The shield bug family. The smaller one looks very different from the rest is the nymph. The leaf is quite high up and I have difficulty to place my remote flash properly, thus got undesirable shadow. We evidenced the molting process of the nymph to sub-adult, which is recorded in the previous images. It only took about 20 minute to finish the whole process. The color of the newly emerged sub-adult is light orange, and will getting darker and darker later.

FL 180mm, 1/15sec-F/22, Manual, ISO 400, fill flash, FEC -1.3 (master) & -1.7 ev (remote); tripod, MLU, CCK, 4 Oct 2008.


2- Shield Bug, Adult; FL 180mm, 1/13sec-F/22, Manual, ISO 400, fill flash, FEC -1.3 (master) & -1.7 ev (remote); tripod, MLU, CCK, Singapore, 4 Oct 2008.


3. Moult 1; FL 180mm, 1/13sec-F/22, Manual, ISO 400, fill flash, FEC -1.3 (master) & -1.7 ev (remote); tripod, MLU, CCK, Singapore, 4 Oct 2008.


4. Moult 2, FL 180mm, 1/13sec-F/22, Manual, ISO 400, fill flash, FEC -1.3 (master) & -1.7 ev (remote); tripod, MLU, CCK, Singapore, 4 Oct 2008.


5. Moult 3; FL 180mm, 1/13sec-F/22, Manual, ISO 400, fill flash, FEC -1.3 (master) & -1.7 ev (remote); tripod, MLU, CCK, Singapore, 4 Oct 2008.


6: Moult 4; FL 180mm, 1/13sec-F/22, Manual, ISO 400, fill flash, FEC -1.3 (master) & -1.7 ev (remote); tripod, MLU, CCK, Singapore, 4 Oct 2008.


7: Out eventually! FL 180mm, 1/5sec-F/22, Manual, ISO 400, fill flash, FEC -1.3 (master) & -1.7 ev (remote); tripod, MLU, CCK, Singapore, 4 Oct 2008.

We observed several individuals and all have the same behaviour of turning themselves 180 degree after separated from the original shell (molt), then moved up to pose side by side with the molt. Got no idea of why they got such behavior!?