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Bugs

Attack of the killer bug! The wheelbug (Arilus cristatus) is a large member of the assassin bug family, named for the cog-like protrusion on its back. I found this one chomping down on some prey, clinging to the bottom of a leaf.
	This one is just a youngster (same species), but already looking plenty fierce with his red fang. I found him hiding in between some leaves on a young tree, in mid-June.

Another, smaller, assassin bug, on the lookout for flying snacks near a Mexican sunflower.

Laying in wait on a Maximillian sunflower petal, this ambush bug (Phymata species) is ready to jump its unsuspecting prey - bees and flies that visit flowers for nectar. It's normally found on goldenrod (the next plant over in our garden), where it is better camouflaged.

I found two of these colorful bugs crawling around the seedpods of my swamp milkweed. Sure enough, they are small milkweed bugs (Lygaeus kalmii), and belong to the 'seed bugs'. See, some things just all make sense :-)

Several of these four-lined plant bugs (Poecilocapsus lineatus) were scattered across the garden in late June. This one was stationed on a costmary plant - I guess it likes that bubblegum smell.

This plant bug belongs to the genus Alydus, the broad-headed bugs. It feeds on plant juices. I found this one on a variegated lysimachia, on low-growing foliage.

One day in mid-August, preparing to take a picture of my pink glandularia flowers, I reached to flick off a speck of debris - and realized it wasn't debris, but a long slender bug. Upon closer inspection, it was a confluence of two bugs. Then I saw several more solo specimens on the same plant. They are some kind of stilt bug.

Stinkbugs

This colorful little bug was hiding deep inside an agastache flowerspike. Although I had tentatively identified it as the last nymph stage (5th instar) of Nezara hilaris, a better fit may be the 3rd instar of a species of Euschistus.

And this is probably the adult form of the little one above. This green stinkbug was lounging on a pear in our orchard.

Another plentiful stinkbug in our garden is the twice-stabbed stinkbug (Cosmopepla lintneriana). This one, too, is rather fond of agastache flowerspikes. The adult is small, about 1/8" (3 mm).

In its own way, this stinkbug is kind of handsome, too. Unfortunately, it's the brown marmorated stinkbug (Halyomorpha halys), an agricultural pest from East Asia that was first found in the US in 2001, of all places in Allentown.

This one looks different, but is actually a nymph (juvenile stage) of the marmorated stinkbug at left.

A couple of waterstriders (species Gerris) on the edge of a waterlily pad, trying to ensure the survival of the species. With plenty of predators around, let's hope their offspring is numerous!

Beetles

Ain't it marvellous? A bright shiny pink thing on a very spiny solanum branch. According to the friendly folks at BugGuide, this is a potato beetle larva.

The next year, I found more of the larvae - and also a few adult specimens. Further research told me that these are in fact false potato beetles (species Leptinotarsa juncta) recognizable by brown stripes interrupting the white and black ones.

Asian lady beetles (Harmonia axyridis) just love our empress tree, probably because the aphids like it too.

This dandy is a longhorn beetle, more specifically a red milkweed beetle ( Tetraopes tetrophthalmus). In late June, our swamp milkweed flowers were full of them.

All of a sudden one nice day in late summer, there were dozens of these orange fellas hovering around. Turns out they are goldenrod soldier beetles, or Pennsylvania leatherwings (Chauliognathus pennsylvanicus). While we have a good supply of goldenrod in our garden, our visitors seemed to prefer our culinary herbs. Gourmand beetles - go figure.

The beetle I least like to see in our garden - the one that defoliates quite a wide range of plants in mid-summer: the Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica). We really haven't tried to fight them: The milky spore fungus is a natural control that attacks the white grubs overwintering in the lawn, but takes a few years to become effective and is expensive for the expanse of grass we'd have to cover. Grub control chemicals seem like overkill, counter to our mostly organic gardening approach, and I'd be afraid they'd kill beneficials as well. The pheromone traps are controversial - do they help, or do they merely attract more of the nemeses to the gardens they're in? So we don't do much more than make rounds of the garden once in a while, knocking however many of them as we can manage into a bucket of water. Hardly very effective...

The spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) is usually found on flowers, in this case red flax.

Weevils

I'm pretty sure this is a rose curculio (Merhynchites bicolor). It fits, because I found them all over our Virginia rose in late June. It's classified with the leafrolling weevils, but I saw no evidence of that behavior (lots of procreation, though).

A bunch of these tiny grey weevils were feasting on hollyhock leaves. I tried to get a better picture, but it's hard to focus a camera up close to a running bug!

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Last modified: August 14, 2008
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