How blue can it be?

We spotted a metallic blue bug, one of nature's most amazing colors, last Sunday.

It was in the Mostly Natives Nursery in Tomales, a Marin County site frequented by many University of California entomologists and staff as they work on their urban bee research and publications. They come by to check out the native  plants and the insects. 

This blue bug was crawling up and down a Euphorbia (genus Euphorbia, family Euphorbiaceae), an unusual plant in itself because it appears to have green blossoms.

What was this bug?

We asked Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at the UC Davis. Kimsey surrounds herself with more than seven million insect specimens, and I swear she can recite the genus and species of everyone of them.

(At least we all think so!)

So, what was this bug?

She and senior museum scientist Steve Heydon initially identified it as a juvenile harlequin bug, family Pentatomidae.  Kimsey later said--and confirmed--that it's a bordered plant bug, family Largidae.

How blue can it be?

Pure blue!