Your description isn't clear enough to make an identification. Could you take a picture and post it here? If you do that someone is bound to recognize the critters.

Unfortunately, I dont know how to post photos. I will observe them today and try to get a better description.

Count the number of legs and note the shape of the body (long & thin, vs. oval or pear-shaped, etc.) Also note the body colors and whether you can clearly see wings or not. (I identify insects for a living.)

Spider/katydid? since the two look nothing alike I'm having big trouble picturing it.

Maybe you've got a mutant spider/katydid cross ...

No, seriously, probably, my guess would be a crab spider, aka flower spider. They are light green or ivory white or pale yellow, and small, and the front legs are held like a crab holds its front legs. They catch insects. All spiders are meat eaters.

I must contradict your statement that 'because it's a bug it probably does damage'.

One, spiders are not bugs. they're in a whole separate order from insects, only distantly related, like crabs and lobsters.

2, the vast majority of insects do no damage to plants at all. Only a very few species are pests. Most are just a part of the community of life. Some are very beneficial. Don't assume that 'because it's a bug it's doing damage'. I can't tell you how often, when I was working in the field, people would bring me a bug for an ID because they'd been trying to kill them and they keep coming back, and the bug they're trying to exterminate is a ladybug larva - the gardener's best friend and voracious aphid eater. One woman looked like she was going to cry when I told her what she'd been killing. She'd just assumed that if she didn't know what it was, then it must be bad.

3, spiders are all carnivorous, and at their size, they're mainly eating insects.

How to tell a spider from an insect? easy. Spiders always have 8 legs, and only two body parts (head, and everything else), and never have wings. Insects never have more than 6 legs, although caterpillars have fake legs in addition to the regular 6; insects have 3 body parts (head, chest, abdomen), and insects often but not always have wings. Most that have wings have 2 pairs, but flies only have 1 pair (that's how you tell a fly from a bee, by the number of wings).

So watch your bugs today, and if they have 8 legs, then they're not bugs but spiders, and you can safely leave them alone. And even if it's not a spider, by watching them, you can see if they're eating your plants or not. They may just be passing through, or hunting other bugs coming to your flowers.

I think I've seen what you are describing. Do they look like small lime green baby Grasshoppers? That's what I always thought they were. I saw a fully mature Grasshopper the other day and thought Ah Oh - it seems a little early for them.

Praying Mantises also start out loking like the adults just much, much much smaller. That is another one you could look up to see if it fits.

Maryl, you described it perfectly. I looked closer, they have hind legs like a grasshopper and long feelers. They move fast, I couldnt catch one. They are lime green. Just wonder if these are the babies......at first they looked like spiders, then I saw they had those grasshopper looking legs.
Judith

Yeah I've seen them too, but I'm not sure if they harm the plants or not.

I've seen them around for years in early spring but I've never noticed any damage that they cause. If indeed they are baby grasshoppers they apparently have to grow up before they can eat a rose bud. The mature ones sure can do some damage. We really haven't had a severe outbreak of Grasshoppers around here in many years. But that usually occurs in late summer/fall. Because Grasshoppers are like many of the pests we encounter that have wings, they move around alot, so there really isn't much a lone gardener can do to curb them (unless he has Moses on his side directing them elsewhere).

That sure looks like what I have seen. Unless I am missing them on the bushes, they seem to be just on the blooms. Now.......do they do any damage?
Judith

Katydids? They're akin to grasshoppers and crickets. Yes, they're plant eaters, although I don't know of any that are notorious garden pests per se.

Rose, that picture is fantastic. TY for sharing.

York Rose...thanks for that! What an intersting profession!! :)))
We didn't have as many grasshoppers last year..however...it took me several years to figure out they were what was eating leaves more so than other things...seems they thrive in July and August in Ky!!! I just get frustrated!! :(((

I am still seeing these bugs on not only my roses but my daylily blooms. They are fast, cannot be caught by hand. I found an enormous katydid on a daylily bloom today, plucked it off, it bit me......I dropped it but picked it back up and fed it to my chickens. I really cant tell if they are doing any damage to the rose and daylily blooms......I just dont like bugs on my blooms.
Judith

Hey, thanks for that photo! You just ID-ed my bug for me. Cool it's not a major pest, but bummer it isn't going to eat my thrips. :o(

I have seen exactly what you described. Lime green colored spiders (they have more legs than bugs) with flat sides rather than round. I find them on my rose blooms.

I know this is a very old thread but for anyone reading. Yes they are immature katydid's. But rather than kill them which I used to do. I leave them alone now as they food for several beneficials including praying mantids. If I get rid of everything they will not have anything to eat.