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jdpyn2

Learned a new insect order today!

John 9a
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago

I don't claim to know all of the insect orders but I thought I pretty much was aware of most of the local ones. I had two college classes in entomology and I don't think we ever covered Psocoptera.

I saw several large gatherings of tiny (roughly 1/4-inch,counting the antennae) insects with long antennae and yellow striped abdomen. I couldn't tell what kind of mouthparts they had with my 2X cheater glasses....and mouthparts usually go a long way towards IDing an insect order. A few were winged. They looked all the world like aphids so I confess to killing several batches before I did some research to find out how much trouble I had on my hands and which trees they were going to attack. They were on my crepe myrtles and on a couple of citrus trunks. Turns out, they are beneficials of the order Psocoptera and eat lichens, fungus, and other organic debris. They have earned the name "barklice" but they look and act like a tiny herd of sheep when you disturb them, moving as a group and milling around like sheep or cows.

Here is some Aggie Horticulture info a couple of my own photos (trunk of a Satsuma orange). None did a good job of capturing the long antennae I could see quite well with my 2X cheaters!

https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/beneficials/beneficial-41_barklice2_Cerastipscus_sp.htm



and a closer look...



Here in SE Texas, I need all the help I can get controlling fungal infections so I'm giving these guys a gold medal now!

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