Does their overall appearance vaguely resemble a green grasshopper, or cricket (if possibly a little one)?

No, they don't have the legs for it. Their backs are bisected pretty sharply for the wing flaps and are shallowly domed. Again, I really wish I could get a pic, but I think the only way I could do so would be by smashing one which would obviously compromise its structure.

Thanks though.

"which would obviously compromise it's structure." lol!

Green with black spots could be spotted cucumber beetle. These are slightly elongated compared to lady bugs but not as elongated as earwigs. If the "wing flaps" are hard and opaque, it is probably a beetle.

I actually saw a spotted cucumber beetle yesterday (though I didn't know what it was until you just described it, Michael). These do look very similar, just a bit smaller, with a brighter green color, and without the spots. So I guess I'm looking at some kind of beetle then.

I suppose the use of "wing flaps" is a giveaway that I don't know squat about insect anatomy.

Thanks for the help.

I can't ID your bug for you, but wanted to ask - by nimble, do you mean they run/fly away, or do they just sort of spring away in a disappearing fashion?

In my limited experience, bugs that are speedy on their feet are often predators of other bugs. Something that flies away may well be a beetle, with the body shape you describe. And things that just sproing into thin air when you get close might be some sort of leaf hopper.

Whatever they are, if they're that quick, spraying to kill them won't be very effective - they'll see you coming and take off; sprays are more for dawdling, slower things.

I guess if you're seeing lots of damage (and you're sure it's from these guys) you could try some sort of systemic, but I'm not really sure how effective that is if they're only eating the flowers. If you're just seeing a few bites taken here or there I might just leave them be.

Also, squishing one may be a good idea, just to see if their wing flaps are hard/brittle; if they are, that's more evidence for beetlehood. Plus, squishing is cathartic!

Good luck!
Lara

I know the bug to which you refer, but I don't know the name. They come out of the bean fields en masse in the Fall, and I WANT to say bean aphid but I don't think that's right.

No aphid is nimble. In my mind I like to think of aphids as the insect version of cattle (except that they breed far, far, far faster than rabbits! it's not unheard of for a population of aphids to increase 1,000-fold in just two or three weeks).

At best the walking of any aphid could only be described as "lumbering"! :)

It's true that predatory insects are often nimble, but in my experience there are also plenty of nimble insect pests. (Have you ever tried killing leafhopper nymphs with your fingers, as they shuffle sideways to the underside of the leaf faster than you can get to them?)

Now that I know more about what you're seeing, I think you're probably encountering a sister species of the spotted cucumber beetle commonly known as the "northern corn rootworm". Spotted cucumber beetles are "leaf beetles" (i.e., in the beetle family "Chrysomelidae", a family with more than its share of serious pests) with the scientific name of "Diabrotica undecimpunctata". They look like this.

The northern corn rootworm also is a leaf beetle in that genus, but it's a different species. Its scientific name is "Diabrotica barberi", and it looks like this.

Does that look like what you're seeing? They're famous pests. There are a number of species from the genus Diabrotica that are notorious US plant pests of mid & late summer.

Most (but by no means all) adult insects have four wings (two pairs, one in front of the other).

In the beetles that front pair of wings has been modified so that they are no longer used for flying. Instead they are covers for the hind pair of wings, and it's the hind pair that does all the actual flying. The front pair of wings has become, as you said, "wing flaps". The scientific name for the beetle "order" is "Coleoptera". That is a word constructed from Latin and it means "shield wings". The name scientists use for the beetle order explicitly refers to those "wing flaps".

(Many of the other insect order names also are very descriptive in some way. For instance, adult flies have only two wings (the front pair). With the flies the hind pair of wings has become a very small pair of orientation organs. (You can see them if you put an adult fly under a dissecting microscope, and they're right where you would expect the hind pair of wings to be, but they are far too small to serve as wings.) Well, the scientific name for the fly order is "Diptera", which means "two wings".

The scientific name for the dragonfly order is "Odonata". That means "teeth", a most appropriate name for a dragonfly if you've ever closely looked at their mandibles ("jaws")! :) )

That corn rootworm adult looks a lot like the ones we see here. They are getting quite numerous now so I will try and get a photo to share and see if it what veryzer is seeing.

Pretty sure, now, that's what I've got. Are the larvae inchworms? Here are some pics; the major chewing damage is Jap beetles. The blooming rose is Cornelia.

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They're here also. Do you think the aerial spraying flushed them out of the corn fields?

You're right on the money York Rose! Good call. When I try to take a picture like that, Green, I just end up with a blurry mess. So, IL gals, do you see them doing any damage?...well, Terry, any damage not done by a JB is probably inconsequential to you especially.

I tried a little insecticidal soap but don't think it did anything. In fact, I'm pretty sure I heard one of them giggle.

BTW, thanks for the lesson York Rose.

No, their larvae aren't inchworms. I'm not certain, but I believe their larvae ("grubs") are subterranean root eaters (& the cause for their common name of "northern corn rootworm").

Inchworms are the larvae ("caterpillars") of moth species in the family "Geometridae".

veryzer, I am sure they are munching the roses, but, like you said, the damage they do is far secondary to the destruction by Jap beetles.

york rose, DUH! I totally had a slap-my-forehead moment! "rootworm" implies, well...lol!

terryjean, excellent thought..could be! The "dusters" were out in force last week.

Okay, getting paranoid. I haven't seen these here, YET. Then again, I worked late most of the week and haven't been out to do my normal rose-snooping rounds.

Just when the rose slug problem is conquered, the JBs show up. Now that the JBs are subsiding, I have THIS to look forward to? Oh my.....guess I may need to add Prozac to my weekend shopping list.

Lol, flaurabunda, no need for the Prozac. They are a nuisance at worst. :o)

Flaurabunda, you're lucky if the JBs are dwindling in Decatur. I'm in Pekin (about 1.5 hours from you) and they're still in full force. Pass the Prozac, please.

Terry,
I think we met at the Greater Peoria rose show last year---I came with my husband Mike & it was during that horrible downpour. Despite the weather, we had lots of fun that day. We're the couple that lives not too far from Dan.

I tried something different this year & stopped spraying. The only thing I've noticed is that I have a lot more wasps and yellow jackets, but the JBs seemed to disappear faster this year. Can't link a cause & effect here yet, since that could be attributable to just about anything, but I'm certainly going to repeat this practice until I know for sure if it works.