{"id":1217,"date":"2025-07-05T11:59:29","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T11:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pawel.wpexpart.com\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2026-06-04T06:54:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T06:54:31","slug":"2025-07-italian-striped-bug-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/posts\/2025-07-italian-striped-bug-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Nature\u2019s fashion statement: The striped shield bugs of Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Italian striped bug (<em>Graphosoma italicum<\/em>) belongs to the true bugs (<em>Hemiptera<\/em>)\u2014a massive and incredibly diverse order of insects. With their bold, graphic coloration, these striking insects are a common sight in meadows, forest clearings, and gardens across Europe. Equipped with specialized piercing-sucking mouthparts, they expertly tap into plant tissues to draw out sap, and when it&#8217;s time to move on, they prove to be remarkably efficient fliers. True bugs are masters of adaptation, a trait that explains their staggering evolutionary success, with over 40,000 described species worldwide. While it&#8217;s true that some members of this family can emit a pungent odor when disturbed, I find the Italian striped bug and its kin to be a vibrant, indispensable splash of color that beautifully decorates our meadows and forests. I managed to take nice photos on two occasions &#8211; in summer 2024 in Portugal and in summer 2025 in Poland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Italian striped bug (Graphosoma italicum) belongs to the true bugs (Hemiptera)\u2014a massive and incredibly diverse order of insects. With [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"countries":[63,77],"order-category":[60,54,42],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phytophages-herbivores","countries-europe","countries-poland","order-category-insects","order-category-insects-true-bugs-shield-bugs","order-category-insects-true-bugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2145,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions\/2145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/countries?post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"order-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/order-category?post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}