Garden Pests and Diseases: Friend or Foe #2, 1 by Night_Bloom

Night_Bloom wrote:
Tamara - They are related. Assassin bugs are also in the family Reduviidae, so in a way, a wheel bug is a special type of assassin bug. The characteristic that probably gives them a similar look is the enlarged front legs.

By the way, did the links to the lady beetle pupae on the last thread work for you? That website is a pretty good one for finding pictures of insects.

In addition to the green asassin bug on the last thread, here's another assassin bug. This one is doing something not so helpful now - eating a bee - but of course that is sometimes a hazard with predatory bugs. They don't always get just the bad guys. Note the enlarged front legs that make it look like an arm wrestler. These are what it uses to grab its prey.