P is for Pencil-thin...but Fat-legged!

These are currently very common on the roadside verges and in the hedgerows of this still remarkably green and relatively pleasant land. Watch the grass brown if this weather continues though! In a similar colour range to the Rose Chafer from bronze-greens through to grass-green, this is the Thick-legged (or Fat-legged) Flower Beetle (Oedemera nobilis), the leg thing being confined to the males.

These are the large daisy-type things - I don't know the name of - which line our verges and colonise waste ground, central reservations (medians) on motorways (highways/interstates) and the like, they look like Michaelmas daises but it's not Michaelmas!

These are all males and you can see where the name comes from, the upper section of the rear pair of legs are ballooned out.

Some more males, the other defining feature of these is the non-meeting of the wing casings, leaving a small section of the wings showing. One of the things I've noticed photographing beetles these last few weeks is how appallingly bad they all are at getting their wings back in order when they land, this species seems to have just given-up altogether!

The Females; these are all together more dowdy, less tapered toward the rear and lacking the fat legs of the male, still they can have a metallic sheen, it's just that I failed to get a decent shot. They also seem to make a better job vis-a-vis wing cases! Notice also that the one in the bottom-right image needed to take care - a very pale and quite well camouflaged spider was ever so slowly stalking her...