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The Hemiptera, commonly known as the true bugs, are one of the largest groups of insects found in the UK, with almost 2,000 species having been recorded. Around 600 of those species belong to the Heteroptera, sometimes known as the typical bugs.
This website aims to bring together information on this fascinating but under-recorded group of insects, with a focus on the county of Bedfordshire. Thanks to the remarkable efforts of Dr. Bernard Nau, who was the county recorder for over 40 years, the county fauna is far better understood than across much of the UK, with a county list exceeding 400 species.
What is a bug?
Bugs are insects, and so have the typical charactistics of a segmented body with a chitinous exoskeleton and six legs. Bugs are then distinguished from other insects by having their mouthparts adapted into a stabbing tool, known as the rostrum. They use this to pierce plant and animal tissues and feed on the contents.
In addition bugs are moderately unusual in not having a larval stage like butterflies & moths, beetles and flies, but instead developing through a number of nymph stages, where the nymph is essentially a miniature version of the adult in terms of its morphology, although in some cases nymphs may be patterned very differently from adults.
In the UK, the Heteroptera, or true bugs, are represented by 24 separate families, ranging from the Miridae, with over 200 species, to the Alydidae, with only a single species recorded from the UK.
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