It's actually more than that - it's like a whole little ecosystem in there! I cut some of the pods off this plant and started to dump out the seeds, when I was surprised by all the bugs that came out too. Can anyone direct me to a thread that has discussed this before? More photos follow.... with more questions....
Thanks,
Liz
bugs
There were also tiny spiders and some even tinier bright red things, that don't/can't show up here. Also some corpses - see next pic
Here's the corpse; hope you can see it. There were several, kind of looks like a mosquito?
Oh, and this was the plant in bloom a month or so ago.....
Here's another bug I just found on ROS pods - might have to go to "bug id" for this one! You probably can't tell from the photos, but he has a very small version of the other fellows attached to his side and he doesn't look happy. Doesn't look nice either - note the stinger looking thing on the back of him....
The last one looks like an earwig? I don't know of anything else that has the little pincher things on one end.
Liz,
Same thing happened to me this weekend. I went to pull seed pods off of my Hardy Hib to harvest the seeds and all kinds of tiny critters rushed out! I squished as many as possible and so didn't get a good look at them.The leaves are not chewed and the bush is still blooming, so do we worry?
Deb
Deb, they eat the seeds. Look closely and you may find some of the seeds have holes and are hollowed out. But, they didn't seem to damage but a few, considering how many hundreds of bugs were in there! Still, it was a little unnerving, especially the orb weaver 8>O
Liz
