We’ve been visited by a lot of bugs (true bugs, insects in the family Hemiptera) this summer, but I think the one I found this weekend while trying to console myself for chasing away the moth I was trying to photograph is one of the most amazing: the ornately sculpted Chondrocera laticornis, one of the several leaf-footed bugs in Florida:
I found a lovely full-page drawing of this species in Coreidae of Florida (Hemiptera, Heteroptera), a publicationby Baranowski and Slater available online.
The publisher is the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry. Their introduction notes that there are 33 genera and 120 species of Coreidae, also known as squash bugs; the reason the dept. of ag. is interested in them is they include some important pest species.
Our little bug doesn’t seem like too much of a pest to me; just hanging out on my passionvine (a hybrid between Passiflora incarnata and an unnamed [to me, not undescribed] mexican species). Apparently, though, the passionvine is the only known host for this little guy, and its U.S. range is restricted to the Keys and the Atlantic coast of south Florida (with reports from as far north as Cape Canaveral).
The legs and antennae are both beautifully sculpted, but since I’m a complete neophyte at description, let’s let Baranowski and Slater describe the species:
Head, pronotum, legs, and ventral surface tan to yellowish. Hemelytra reddish brown. Antennae and tarsi dull reddish. Lateral pronotal margins finely crenulate, humeral angles acute. Hind tibiae greatly enlarged, flattened, and leaf· like. Moderately large (16·18[mm]) with parallel·sided body.
For those of you who feel a picture is worth a thousand words (or 40 or so, in this case), here you go:
awsome!! I spotted this creature one afternoon a few wks ago, hanging out
on the corky stem passion vine that has twined itself into our little jungle
patch. the corky stem attracts the zebra’s bfly’s, so we leave it alone to go
where ever, since the bfly’s are so welcome in our garden.
Glad it does no apparent harm, did not know what is was and send my photo
to Mounts Botanical Garden, wpb,,fl. Debra Levulis was able to i.d. (our garden is in wpb, fl.
I’m in Orlando, FL and have lots of these showing up on my passion flower vines this summer. Thanks for helping me figure out what they are!
Found one in my house yesterday. Venice, Florida. It flew inside the night before. Since it’s not invasive, I’ll let it go.
I just found one in Nokomis and while researching what it was, I found your reply. Mine was also on passionflower vine.
I found one yesterday – it’s still there today, on my Corkystem. It’s such a cool looking insect, and as intrigued as I am with insects, I had to know what it was. I am happy to know that the Corkystem is it’s host plant. As long as it leaves my caterpillars alone, it can stay.
Also, there’s an egg on one of the leaves that’s different than a Zebra’s or a Fritillary, maybe this is the egg if this little fella? I don’t know, the egg is very small like the butterfly eggs, but it’s kind of shiny and maybe cream colored? I’ll have to check that out.
Anyway…very cool looking!
Oh! This one is missing the ‘eaf looking thing on one leg. 🥴