Morphology of the pupae of Physonota humilis Boheman and Physonota stigmatilis Boheman (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Cassidinae: Ischyrosonychini)

Pupal morphology has been described for 11 species in six genera of the Neotropical tortoise beetle tribe, Ischyrosonychini Chapuis, 1875. This life stage may offer valuable phylogenetic information but more pupae need to be documented. The pupae of Physonota humilis Boheman, 1856 and P. stigmatilis Boheman, 1854 are described and illustrated for the first time. The pupa of P. humilis does not exhibit lateral scoli on the abdominal segments. Additionally, the body surfaces of P. humilis and P. stigmatilis are somewhat tuberculate, different from other described Physonota Boheman, 1854 pupae. A key to the described pupae of Physonota is provided and 10 phylogenetic character hypotheses are proposed.

The First Record of Tortoise Beetle Damage to Sugar Beet in the UK: Is Global Warming Responsible?

The authors thought they had experienced everything that the sugar beet crop could throw at them from a pest point of view after almost 40 years of working with the sugar beet industry. It was therefore very exciting to be confronted with a highly unusual pest this summer, so unusual that its presence in high numbers causing significant damage to a sugar beet crop in Norfolk in August 2021, is the first record of such damage in the UK. The pest was the exotic tortoise beetle, Cassida nebulosa, which the sugar beet bible, Pests, Diseases and Disorders of Sugar Beet, published by the International Institute de la Recherches Betteraves (IIRB), describes as rare, and never important in northern Europe. Indeed, this species has never, in our memory, been recorded before as a pest in sugar beet in the UK, only a very rare presence. Dewar and Cooke (2006) stated in their review of pest problems in sugar beet the UK, that crop damage by tortoise beetles never occurs in western Europe, but can be severe in warmer Mediterranean regions and in Russia.

A Bioinspired Stretchable Sensory-Neuromorphic System

Conventional stretchable electronics entailing the adoption of a wavy design, a neutral mechanical plane, and a conformal contact between abiotic and biotic interfaces have shown diverse skin-interfaced applications. Despite such remarkable progress, there have been challenged to be evolved to intelligent skin prosthetics due to the absence of the monolithic integration of neuromorphic constituents into individual sensing and actuating components. Herein, we demonstrate a golden tortoise beetle-inspired stretchable sensory-neuromorphic system comprising an artificial mechanoreceptor, an artificial synapse, and an epidermal photonic actuator as three biomimetic functionalities that correspond to a stretchable capacitive pressure sensor, a resistive random-access memory, and a quantum dot light-emitting diode, respectively. This system features a rigid-island structure interconnected with a sinter-free printable conductor (stretchability ~ 160%, conductivity ~ 18,550 S/cm), which allows one to improve both areal density and structural reliability while avoiding the thermal degradation of heat-sensitive stretchable electronic components. Moreover, even in the skin deformation range, the system accurately recognizes various patterned stimuli via an artificial neural network with training/inferencing functions. Our new bioinspired system is therefore expected to be an important step toward the implementation of intelligent wearable electronics.