Butterflies are having a bad year so far and are thin on the ground, so I have been entertaining myself with other little beasties.
This beautiful, iridescent emerald-coloured beetle is a member of the flower beetle family with a rather grand, royal sounding latin name Oedemera nobilis. It has several fun but less flattering English names too such as thick-legged flower beetle or swollen-thighed flower beetle, although only the females have the fat thighs.
Despite their imposing looking mandibles, adult emerald flower beetles are herbivorous and feed on flower pollen and nectar. This female thick-legged flower beetle is pictured on a Common Rock Rose (Helianthemum Nummularian) up at Ringstead Downs in North Norfolk.