White bugs in saucer under spider plant

9 years ago

I found a pile of these small white bugs in the saucer under my spider plant. They writhe like maggots might, but they appear to have antennae. Are they springtails? They don't appear to jump when disturbed, just recoil. They're too tiny for me to identify by the naked eye, and I don't have a magnifying glass. Can anyone make out what they might be from this photo? Some with antennae are visible along the periphery of the pile...

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MrBlubs

9 years ago

last modified: 9 years ago

They look like Springtails

If so it's from moist conditions in the soil... They're mostly harmless but in large numbers can do some damage to roots and what not but they actually help aireate the soil... They get real annoying though!

I have a family of

centipedes living in my Majesty Palm.... I'll keep them there untill one day they crawl in my mouth while sleeping or something..... Then death to all

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Comments (13)

marguerite_gw Zone 9a
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Caitlin, these look like whitefly larvae which have washed out of the soil. Have you had this pest before? Did your plant come from a warm greenhouse?
RioSeven
9 years ago
Gross! Plants attract a lot of bugs, and not only the kind that eat/kill the plant. The other day I was digging around my "fire flash" to see if I could check the roots and I saw something move. I pulled my finger out and a centipede was running around. My finger touched a centipede. Unacceptable!!! My mom is totally afraid of them, when I told her what happened she almost fainted/barfed. Lol.
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marguerite_gw Zone 9a
9 years ago
If it was a real centipede, they are the gardener's friend, at least in Ireland. Was that a very poisonous one? Since your mum nearly fainted?
RioSeven
9 years ago
We are in Canada so as far as I know, most of our bugs are harmless. I think if one of our centipedes bites you (pretty rare) it is like a bee sting. My mom just hates them, she lives in a ground floor apartment and she sees them a fair bit. They kinda pop up unexpectedly in your bathroom, so she has gotten a bit phobic.

In our house, we have a no kill policy - as long as you are not a mealy bug! So we either live with the bug or put him outside. Once we found a catapiller type-thing in our produce drawer and we feed it, and watched it transform into a moth. For the record, the transformation looked painful :-)
marguerite_gw Zone 9a
9 years ago
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www.gardenofireland.com
RioSeven
9 years ago
Neat! It is cool to know there are others who won't kill bugs:-)

One year we had a handful of ladybugs for the winter. We made them a home in our bathroom and fed them raisins and grapes. This sounds strange but they all had different personalities. And we grew to dislike some and love others. There was one in particular who was special.

Someone told me that ladybugs in your home is a sign that your problems will be resolved...so maybe she really was special.
marguerite_gw Zone 9a
9 years ago
RioSeven, that is so interesting, ladybirds as pets (that's what we call them here), also they are known as God's Cows, I'm not sure why.

All those centipedes you have, Mr. Blubs, how many legs would there be in your Majesty Palm altogether, then? So they are social creatures, I'm learning so much today.
lyngal28
7 years ago
Caitlin; I have the exact same thing in the saucer of my spider plant. What are these bugs--have you found any solutions to get rid of them?
User
7 years ago
let pot soak in water for about 1.5 hrs to kill insects and eggs.
EHH824
7 years ago
Although it's tough to get up close photos of springtails, here is one I managed to snap... Does this resemble the bugs you're seeing?

They're from moist conditions and are somewhat hard to get rid of.
lyngal28
7 years ago
They are exactly like Caitlin's photo and they "skitter" around. I had just re-potted my spider plant with new/fresh potting soil and thoroughly watered. The next day is when I noticed the tiny white bugs in the saucer. Although is used new potting soil, perhaps those bugs were on the roots of the plant and I could not see them. I washed out the saucer and am trying a home remedy by spraying the saucer and bottom of the pot with a mixture of water and a small amount of rubbing alcohol. I am going to keep watch to see if those darn bugs come back.
Tanya Matthew
2 years ago
I have the exact same problem! I can't seem them anywhere on the internet. The closest description is springtails but I haven't watered my snake plants in 4 weeks and they don't seem to be reducing in number. I have sprinkled soda bicarb in the saucers under the pots but that doesn't help either. There are tonnes of tiny white larvae that to the naked eye look like a grainy powder but on closer inspection can be seem to writhe around. There are just one or two fast moving blackish insects under each pot.