Assassin Bug: nymph and adult

Haname

13 years ago

Assassin Bug nymph on eggplant

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Not really interested in posing for pictures

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Small bee victim

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That's how we get nice and fat

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Nymph no more

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Comments (5)

crista
13 years ago
Cool! Always wondered what those bugs were! Thanks for the pics!
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grant_in_arizona
13 years ago
Terrific photos! Thanks for posting all of them. I see them now and then in my garden and am never sure if I should consider them good or bad, so I just let them be. Great photos, thanks for highlighting this critter!

Take care,
Grant
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vstech The bugs in the photo are leaffooted bugs and you should kill as many of them as you can as fast as you can. In my experience sunflowers will draw them in by the hundreds. They spend most of their time sucking the nectar, but when and if that runs out they move on to the tomatoes and peppers. If it hasn't happened already, you should soon start to see large numbers of juveniles - small bright red nymphs that travel in rather large groups. They are much easier to hand pick while they are young. Last summer I would kill about a half dozen adults each evening and dozens of the young ones when they hatched and I still never got rid of them. This year I did not plant sunflowers and I have only seen one or two adults all season. Other posters on other forums have indicated that the adults are very hard to control using organic methods. Good Luck. Matt
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Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm absolutely NOT going to check the entire passion vine (it is massive) for SB eggs. In fact, the SBs could have quite a lot of it in exchange for leaving the squash plants alone, lol! It's a miracle I even found the eggs to begin with, since I seem to have about an acre of it growing in a tiny front yard. I agree with both of you, I had just never heard of it happening with SBs. Butterflies are certainly known to change their larval host plants when their preferred hosts are not available for whatever reason. Survival of the species. Susan
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assassin bug nymph
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Other nymphs resemble them. Do you have images? If so, perhaps someone here can help ID them.
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You can differentiate between the Stinkbug nymphs and the Assassin Bug nymphs by the tail end. I have a little blurb that helps me: "Bad Black Bump" which is what the Stinkbug nymphs sport on their butt tips when they are smallish and congregating like little orange ants with long black legs. The clue is "congregate". Stinkbugs are groupies, and usually appear as a whole mass of them together, usually on top of your best tomato... Assassin Bugs, true to their name, are singular and solitary. You will usually encounter them one at a time, or, in my case, if you have a "herd" of them in your milkweed, you will see them down there with adequate space between themselves, and being rather territorial... I consider my "herd" of Assassins to be Allies. They patrol the grass and milkweed and keep EVERYTHING from crawling up to my veggie plants. The downside is that they are afraid of nothing, and will kill EVERYTHING in their path, so this means they do take out some of your beneficial bugs (bennies) as well. However, it's a trade-off, 'cause the bennies might relocate to the other side of your yard and be very safe and happy... Linda
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rogunit
13 years ago
They are good guys!
0
tracydr
13 years ago
Do these come in black? My dog was playing with a black bug that looked like this in the house, then I found a couple more. Was wondering if I had a hatch of them somewhere.
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Haname
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks! Tracy yes there are assassin bugs that are black, but any bug like this that you find in the house should be removed. Assassin bugs bite, and one type actually spreads disease. I hope that's not the kind you found but check the picture in the link below.

These are generally good in the garden. They eat caterpillars and other insects that eat plants, but as you can see from the picture, they also will eat others that you want in the garden, like little pollinator bees. This one kept my eggplant clear of caterpillars. Now that it's gone, hopefully some of the bees can have a chance to pollinate the flowers now!

But they don't belong in the house, and shouldn't be handled.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kissing Bug
0

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Assassin Bug: nymph and adult

Comments (5)

crista

grant_in_arizona

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Assassin Bug: nymph and adult

Comments (5)

crista

grant_in_arizona

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Haname
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