Status: Widespread and locally common, though may be absent from Scotland.
Habitat: Usually near water e.g. sea cliffs, fens, bogs, marshes, watersides and peat cuttings.
Host plant: Purple-loosestrife Lythrum salicaria.
Overwintering: Adults hibernate in stems e.g. of dead bulrushes.
Food: Various parts of host plant - adults start on young tips prior to leaf opening, then move onto leaves; larvae start on leaf and flower buds, moving onto any part of the plant as they develop and can cause complete defoliation.
Other notes: Hymenopteran parasites: larvae parasitised by Homalotylus flaminius (Encyrtidae) and Closterocerus caterinae (Eulophidae); Adults parasitised by Centistes rufithorax (Braconidae).

Status: Widespread and often common
Habitat: Various
Host plant: Alders, hazel, willows, black-poplar and birch
Overwintering: Adults hibernate in sedge tussovks, under bark (on mature willows and dead wood), and in standing umbellifer stems.
Food: Leaves of host trees
Other notes: Larvae predated by heteropteran bugs Anthocoris nemorum (Anthocoridae) and Rhacognathus punctatus (Pentatomidae); several ladybird species (Coccinellidae) feed on eggs and larvae.

Status: Widespread and common
Habitat: Various wetlands, beside water-bodies and also in drier habitats.
Host plant: Docks (Rumex spp) and various Rosaceae
Overwintering: Adults hibernate under leaf shealths of bulrush (Typha latifolia)
Food: Leaves of host plants
Other notes: nymphaeae is usually larger and darker (on water-lilies); sagittariae is usually smaller and paler (on various semi-aquatic and terrestrial plants, especially docks Rumex spp and Rosaceae). Larvae and adults predated by Picromerus bidens and Zicrona caerulea (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae). In continental Europe, several ladybird (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) species feed on eggs and larvae.

Status: Widely scattered
Habitat: Various wetlands
Host plant: Purple-loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria)
Overwintering: Adults in litter or topsoil
Food: Adults on yound leaf-tips prior to unfolding; larvae initially on leaf and flower buds, later on any part of the plant.
Other notes: Larvae parasitised by Closterocerus caterinae (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae); adults by Centistes rufithorax (Hymenoptera: Braconidae)

Status: Widespread and common
Habitat: Various wetland types
Host plant: Water-lilies
Overwintering: Adults hibernate under leaf shealths of bulrush (Typha latifolia)
Food: Leaves of host plants
Other notes: nymphaeae is usually larger and darker (on water-lilies); sagittariae is usually smaller and paler (on various semi-aquatic and terrestrial plants, especially docks Rumex spp and Rosaceae). Larvae parasitised by Closterocerus caterinae & C. lucens (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae). Eggs destroyed by the snail Succinea putris.

Status: Endangered (RDB1); records from a few scattered locations in southern and eastern England, but recently only from a small area of a single site in Norfolk, therefore vulnerable to over-collecting.
RDB Category: Endangered (RDB1)
Habitat: Fens and coppices
Host plant: Thistles (Cirsium spp)
Overwintering: Not as adults
Food: Leaves of thistles
Other notes: In Scandinavia, adults and larvae may be predated by the carabid beetle Lebia cruxminor.