Leaffooted bugs on a decomposing Texas thistle head

Click for greater clarity, especially in the texture on the bugs.

This head of a Texas thistle, Cirsium texanum, was beginning to decompose, but that sort of falling away from an ideal form that humans prefer was no deterrent to these leaffooted bugs, known scientifically as Leptoglossus phyllopus, which seemed to be having a grand time.

I took this photograph on April 12th across the street from the intermingled colonies of old plainsman and prairie verbana that you’ve already seen at the corner of Corral Ln. and Interstate 35 in south Austin.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman