Sigara lateralis (leach, 1817)
This is a common and widely-distributed species around Northants that likes organically enriched ponds, lakes and ditches especially those befouled by livestock. Often found in cattle trough's cattle trough's.
Overwintered adults lay eggs during March and April grouped in twos and threes upon stems or twigs. Eggs develop at spring temperatures in about 2 or 3 weeks and the larvae (the females are markedly the larger sex) take 6 to 7 weeks (S&L, 1959). There can also be another on or two generations in the same year.
Emergence period:
GB IUCN Status: Least Concern
Northants status: Very Common
Number of records: 218
Number of sites: 65
1km squares recorded: 84
5km squares recorded: 45
10km squares recorded: 23
Synonym: = hieroglyphica (Dufour, 1833 - Corisa)
Distribution:
This has been recorded on 65 sites, 45 5km squares and 23 10km squares across Northants and has the potential to be in every 10km square and is very common.
Habitat:
It is a relatively frequent migrant and sometimes taken in light traps, the bugs move rapidly from place to place and suitable new localities are soon colonized and old ones deserted (S&L, 1959). This is readily found in many early successional sites in Northants including dredged scrapes, new ponds, shallow waterbodies with little or no vegetation and roadside drainage lagoons.
Identification:
This is a small corixidae and the key identification feature is that the last tarsi on the hind leg is entirely dark. This is easily identifiable but you may have to move the hairs to one side just to check as in some species these come up dark and confuse what you are seeing. The front palae and the arrangement of the pegs are also unique if not used in the identification keys.
Dark hind tarsi underneath hairs Pegs on male palae