Southern green shieldbug: life cycle

A look at how the insect develops – its biology and life cycle.

The female southern green shieldbug deposits eggs in batches of between 30 and 130 on the underside of leaves in the upper areas of the crop canopy.

These barrel-shaped eggs are pale yellow in colour and are firmly ‘glued’ to each other and to the leaf surface.

The eggs turn a pinkish colour as they mature.

The immature southern green shieldbug moults five time during its development.

Southern green shieldbug life cycle stages

Image © Ashley Wood.

Each intermediate stage is known as a nymph or instar. The five instars are so different in appearance that they are often thought to be different species.

There is also considerable variation in colour within each instar.

First instars often remain in sibling groups

Image © Keith Edkins. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike3.0 License

Mid instar nymph with predominantly dark colouration

Image © Steve Gill.

Fifth instar with predominantly green colouration

Image © Tristan Bantock.

The content on this page was authored for AHDB by Dr Rob Jacobson (Rob Jacobson Consultancy Ltd).