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Vegetable Gardening

Bug ID... Beneficial or Not?

7 years ago

I am hoping someone can help me with bug ID. There are a lot of these small black fly-type bugs on my watermelon plants...see photos. Can anyone tell me what they are? I also found them all over on my corn stalks, along with what looks to me like lady bug larva.

I found squash bugs on my watermelon plants, so before I dispatch those, I wanted to know what else I've got. Thank You!

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Comments (4)

lkzz
7 years ago
The bottom picture...the larger bug on the left, orange and black, is a lady beetle larva - very beneficial. It eats soft-bodied insects, like aphids. Not sure what the smaller black bugs are -adult aphids?
digdirt2
7 years ago
The black ones, the ones that outnumber everyone else, look like Blister Beetles to me. Check photos of them on Google Images for comparison. They and the LB larvae are after all the aphids but the beetles will also begin eating holes in leaves.

Dave
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KSprairie
Original Author
7 years ago
Yikes, I hope they aren't blister beetles! They do look different than the images I found, but I haven't had any luck matching them up with anything else either. I will keep watching them, thanks for the help. I didn't want to spray or dust anything that would kill the LBs, there a whole lot of those on all of my corn plants.
minis006
7 years ago
Is the top one a weevil with a long about?

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