Slender Rice Bug

Description:

Cletus trigonus Thunberg,1783 is a species of true bugs in the family leaf-footed bugs. They are diurnal. (https://eol.org/pages/3687827). The three white spots which are always clearly visible on its back make this species easy to distinguish, at a glance, from other Coreidae (Leaf Footed Bugs) such as Homoeocerus marginellus Herrich-Schaffer, 1840.

Habitat:

Spotted in fairly large numbers in a rice field in July when the crop was still young. The rice had not yet started flowering and it would be some weeks before the panicles developed. So I can only surmise that this bug obtains sufficient sustenance from the leaf alone. They do not appear to be too much of a problem for the farm, despite being so numerous.