Perennials Fruit & Orchards Edible Landscape

Bug Identification??

3 years ago

Hello, this bug was on my blueberry shrub earlier today. It is nothing I've ever seen before. It's definitely a bug as i took the leaf it was crawling on and it was crawling all over my hand. I finally put it in the freezer so it would stop moving and we could get a picture. The 2nd picture has a 1" x 1" tile in it to give it some scale. I was able to "rub off" the white thinking maybe it was a bug covered with some sort of fuzz, but when I was dissecting it, it didn't seem like it was a body with a wonky covering on it.

Any ideas appreciated.

Featured Answer

Marie Tulin

3 years ago

last modified: 3 years ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=scale+on+plants&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS907US907&oq=scale+on+&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l6.8623j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I guessed scale then googled it. There is soft scale and 'armored' scale. It covered my yellow magnolia and I had to hire an arborist for a major intervention. I hope the spread is limited on your blueberries.

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Comments (12)

Thyme2dig NH Zone 5
Original Author
3 years ago
Hey Marie, I hadn't even thought of scale because there was only this one crawler. I'm so used to thinking of scale as being en masse and attached to stems, etc....

I'll go back out tomorrow to see if I can find any others. I was picking from all 6 bushes today, and this was the only one I noticed while I was out there. Sounds like nymph stage, so maybe if I see more i can take care of it.

Thanks so much for this!

I'm so glad you were able to take care of that gorgeous yellow magnolia of yours.
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
3 years ago
just an observation .. do yo think that bug did all that damage to that leaf .... or might there be something else???

im just thinking ... with that much damage.. you would find more that one white piece of overcooked oatmeal ... lol ...

ken
Thyme2dig NH Zone 5 thanked ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
Thyme2dig NH Zone 5
Original Author
3 years ago
I was out scouring all 6 blueberry bushes this morning and there is NOTHING on any of them. I did have some japanese beetle damage a bit ago, but that has tapered off. This is such an odd little "piece of overcooked oatmeal" (love that!) I also saw another bug on the blueberries a couple weeks ago. Wasn't able to get a pic, but another teeny beetle-ish thing I was not able to ID by going through all the insects in NH (all 895 of them!) So now I've found 2 rogue, single insects of some sort on my blueberry bushes. Oh well. Was just curious what this might be. Did more reading on scale and it sounds like when they are moving they are much, much tinier. I'll keep my eyes peeled for anything else out there. At least thus far it seems to be a single critter.
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
3 years ago
My first though when seeing the photo was an insect that has been parasitized. Enlarging the photo does not really clarify the picture enough to be certain but it just has that appearance..........
Marie Tulin
3 years ago
gardengal, your possibility would be better news than an impending scourge of scale.
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
3 years ago
I've seen a lot of scale in my career.......but none that looks like that !!
peren.all Zone 5a Ontario Canada
3 years ago
I wonder if it could be a Junk bug. I don't know how they get the "junk" to stay attached but it seems to stay put. I did read that you dissected it.
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
3 years ago
Whoa!! That's a new on me.....never heard of a "junk bug" and had to look that up :-) Never knew lacewing larvae collected stuff to hide from predators. And photos of junk bugs look far more like the OP's example than anything else yet mentioned.
Thyme2dig NH Zone 5
Original Author
3 years ago
Peren.all.....WOW! That is crazy! It sure does look like the critter I found. It did seem when I was dissecting it, once I pulled all the "fuzz" off there wasn't much left to the bug itself except some oozing grossness! LOL! This is so very interesting. Thanks for enlightening us!
peren.all Zone 5a Ontario Canada
3 years ago
Yes, nature is a wild and woolly thing lol! There are so many interesting bugs out there including some that have some really weird defenses. So glad you brought this one to our attention.
Marie Tulin
3 years ago
If you look at the link in my first answer I thought the largish critter lower left looked a lot like Thyme's. However I didn't spend time studying it and I'd defer to GG's greater knowledge and expertise. Sue, would you consider sending that photo to UNH extension service. They must know bug.s