Kent Field Club is currently finalising a project, launched in 2013, to record the shieldbugs and allies in Kent, with a view to publishing an atlas of their distribution.

Nearly eighty species of shieldbugs and allies have been recorded in the UK and the majority of these, at least sixty, have also been recorded in Kent. Many have been established here for a very long time, but there are also newcomers that have been recorded in the UK for the first time only within recent years, with Kent being well-placed for some of these new arrivals. One example is the White-Shouldered Shieldbug (pictured), which was first reported in Kent in 2018 but is spreading further within the county each year (see map).

This atlas project covers a group of terrestrial Heteroptera that represents a fascinating and often beautiful set of invertebrates familiar to many naturalists. The species covered by the scope of this atlas are listed on this page.

The aims of the atlas are: to provide a detailed record of each species’ distribution in Kent, on a tetrad basis; to encourage ongoing recording so that changes in distribution can be tracked over time; and to hopefully find new species. As the project has been running for a few years now, 2026 will be the final year of recording before publication.

You can help by actively seeking out shieldbugs or recording those they come across while doing other recording work. If you would like to get involved in this final phase of the atlas project, even if on a casual basis, your records, even of common species, will be important in building up a picture of Kent's shieldbugs. If you would like to make a bigger commitment to the atlas, for example by visiting previously un-covered tetrads, that would be of enormous value. The area covered by the atlas will be the two Vice Counties of Kent (VC16 West Kent and VC15 East Kent).

If you would like to be involved in this worthwhile project, please contact the project team at  and we will be happy to send you further information, including a recording spreadsheet.