Recently, I have been seeing less and less green in the garden. The weather has been very dry and is now getting cooler -- but these aren't the only problems that the plants have been facing. They are also losing large portions of their leaves to hungry herbivores.
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| A rose leaf that has been damaged by an insect, possibly a leafcutting bee. |
I wanted to know what was altering the leaves, often in quite interesting and aesthetically pleasing ways; however, during
the day, the "artists" remained anonymous. Searching again after dark, I found a very different garden. Wherever I looked, there were earwigs (Forficula auricularia). I may have seen over a hundred earwigs during a single tour of the garden -- and wherever I saw them, they were eating.
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| A European earwig (Forficula auricularia) eating the edge of a leaf. |
Although by far the most numerous, the earwigs were not the only insects busy chewing up leaves. I also found a couple of black vine weevils (
Otiorhynchus sulcatus) feeding under the cover of darkness.
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| A black vine weevil (Otiorhynchus sulcatus) eating the edge of a leaf. |
The weevil above was just getting started on its leaf when I found it. It was startled by the camera and dropped to the ground (these weevils cannot fly). However, other leaves nearby had not been so lucky.
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