A particular species of insect has been officially recorded in Scotland for the first time after being discovered at a nature reserve in the Highlands.
Psallus montanus, a species of plantbug, was found by RSPB Scotland volunteer Bob Fleetwood at the charity’s Inshes Marshes nature reserve near Kingussie.
The females of the species are black and red in colour, while the males characterised by a duller black and brown.
Mr Fleetwood has volunteered at Insh Marshes for four years and routinely carries out survey work on the reserve. He found the female Psallus montanus while collecting and recording beetles and bugs from a birch tree.
He said: “Of all the bugs I came across that day, this one looked quite distinctive. As I’m still learning, I wasn’t 100% certain what it was, so I contacted the national recorder for terrestrial bugs, Jim Flanagan, who positively identified it as a female Psallus montanus.
“When I got the confirmation back that this was the first official record of this bug in Scotland, of course I was over the moon. Every day is different when you’re volunteering and this just goes to show that you don’t have to be an expert to play a part in an exciting discovery like this.”
Pete Moore, reserve warden at Insh Marshes, said: “Volunteers are vital to the work of RSPB Scotland and we wouldn’t be able to achieve the amount we do for conservation without all of their hard work. We’re delighted for Bob in making this exciting discovery and it’s a brilliant record to add to the growing list of species we have here at Insh Marshes too.”
Psallus montanus has only been recognised as a British species fairly recently and is similar to Psallus betuleti, which also occurs on birch.
Bugs are an order of insects generally characterised by having two pairs of wings and piercing mouthparts
RSPB Scotland Insh Marshes is one of the most important wetlands in Europe, home to bird species such as curlew, snipe, whooper swan, redshank and lapwing.