Assassin bug or leaf footed bug nymphs?
jds0901
9 years ago
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jds0901
9 years agojds0901
9 years agoRelated Discussions
Stink bug vs. Assassin bug
Comments (4)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...See MoreAssasin bug, a good guy?
Comments (14)I killed a few huddled batches of LFH on both pomegranate fruit and plums over the last few days. They are typically sardined together on fruit where they suck on demand. No need to go anywhere else in search of a meal. Elsewhere in the garden there are lots of assassin bugs that are typically found on the green leaves of outer branches on bushes/plants/trees stationed like sentries on watch...waiting for some insect to fly right up to them, or at least close by where they will slowly ease toward them to snatch them before they fly off. They work alone as hunters, even though the same bush may have several all scattered about on their own preferred part of the bush. When I spot a huddled herd of the LFH, I usually go fetch a bottle of ready-to-deploy Windex and soak them real good and quick before they try to walk away along the twigs/leaves beside the fruit. They die quickly when at that young age from the Windex. If the fruit is not ready for harvest, I usually spray some plain water on it so the Windex won't affect it's health....See MoreTo kill leaf footed bugs...better than neem
Comments (1)When they are clustered on an unshakeable fruit/branch, spraying a saturating dose of Windex on the orange suckers will promptly end the threat. I follow up a minute later with spraying plain water on the fruit to reboot them. Once they do mature, size up, and become grayish, the Windex doesn't work easily on the loner LFH's, or the pairs. Instead, a 'thicker' dose of dishwashing soap in a squirt bottle will smother them in a couple minutes or so if you can saturate them well before they helicopter away from you. I use a spray pump mounted on a 1 quart bottle that can shoot a slim, hard blast about 6 to 8 feet before loosing steam. And I squirt a bunch of times ASAP, since they don't like to get showered....See MoreThe First Wheel Bug Nymphs Are In The Garden
Comments (14)Insect Identification: Wheel BugKeith, It is very confusing. They absolutely are not the same. Both will bite you, but they are not doing it out of maliciousness. They are just trying to protect themselves from the Gigant Human Being they see there near them. I try to avoid sticking my hand into a plant that has a wheel bug sitting there on it, but sometimes I have to stick a hand in there and pick a tomato, and I'm just hoping the wheel bug doesn't bite me. The key way to tell an assassin bug from a wheel bug is that the wheel bug has a thing, I guess I'd call it a protuberance, that sticks out of its back....sort of like it swallowed a wheel/tire off a Hot Wheel and the wheel/tire is wedged under their skin. Well, I don't guess it is skin. Maybe what they have is a carapace? I'm not sure. Assassin bugs look very, very similar to stink bugs. I have a hard time telling them apart and really have to take the time to look at one carefully to decide what it is. I do not necessarily know the name of a good web site that is geared specifically to our region. I usually just type in the name of the insect I think I'm seeing and Google it to see photos so I can see if they match what I am seeing with my own two eyes. There are a couple of great, general-purpose websites that ID bugs. One of them is this one: Bugguide.net On the above website, you can click on the main page and get that box on the left with outline drawings of different kinds of insects. You can click on the drawing that most resembles what you're seeing, and that will lead you to pages of insects and bugs in that family that might help you find what you're seeing. Another one is this one from Texas A&M University: City Bugs Then, for some common insects found in Oklahoma, you cannot go wrong with this website from the Tulsa Master Gardeners organization: Tulsa Master Gardeners Insect Identification Now, here's a wheel bug. See the wheel on its back? It looks like a growth sort of between the bug's shoulders? On this same document, you can see some assassin bugs, like the milkweed assassin bug. Wheelbugs and Other Assassin Bugs Edited to add: Oops, this posted before I was done. I blame my fire radio/pager for going off and startling me. I wanted to add that there are many kinds of assassin bugs, and I spent a lot of time googling bugs to find IDs that matched what I was seeing in my garden for ages before I understood what all the different ones I see here look like. It took me even longer to learn how to ID the various nymphs and younger instars because the young ones do not always look the same as the mature ones. This is why I never kill any insect until I have identified it and know for sure that it is a bad guy, and not a good guy. I know people who have routinely killed wheel bugs and assassin bugs for years because they assumed they were bad guys. I don't want to be the person who does that sort of thing. Hope this helps, Dawn...See Morerhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
9 years agolkzz
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9 years agoDMForcier
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rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7