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Project Noah Nature School
Coptosoma variegatum
A shield bug from the Plataspidae family. Tiny and squarish shaped, mostly black, the section that seperates the head from the thorax and the thorax from the abdomen has a bold, yellow border and the bottom section of the abdomen is covered with yellow spots.
Found on some vine at night.
Also known as Pill bug but that name is more commonly used for certain types of land isopods. https://eol.org/pages/2645348 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plataspida... https://www.inaturalist.org/observations...
Spotted on Dec 14, 2021
Submitted on Jul 31, 2023
2 Comments
Thanks a lot John B! 🙂 I was actually kinda stuck trying to identify this bug, and my awful camera quality pics didn't help at all so this was a lot of help! Now I was looking into the name "variegatum" and it means variegated which perfectly describes the bug's irregular pattern. And variegated could also translate that the bug's pattern is variable from specimen to specimen which kinda explains why some photos show the same species but they have no consistent patterning from one another.
Hi Francis,
Please have a look at the following spottings (2 of mine and 1 of Arne's).
https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/52...
https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/18...
https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/11...
Having seen Arne's spotting when I was looking around to try and identify your Plataspid, I think I will go for Arne's I.D. So I will be renaming mine "Coptosoma variegatum". I hope this helps.