CLOSED: Tiny Caterpillar Predator; Please help ID

debnes_dfw_tx Fort Worth, TX(Zone 8a) Jun 01, 2007

I found this 1/4 inch brown bug sucking the life out of a 3 day old Tiger ST caterpillar. There was another TST egg oviposited and that egg was emptied hollow by one of these tiny predators. I need to add him to my list of enemies as soon as I know what to call him.

*The triangular head has a proboscis used like a syringe. (Inserts into the tiny victim or tiny caterpillar eggs.)
*Along the sides of a tapered (or long triangular) body there are white markings.
*At the rear end is a hairlike loop.

Thank you in advance...

Deb

This message was edited Jun 1, 2007 4:40 PM

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ceejaytown The Woodlands, TX(Zone 9a) Jun 01, 2007

I think it may be the third instar nymph of a spined soldier bug, a good guy unless he's in your butterfly garden.....
http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/beneficial/p_maculiventris04.htm

Post #3563278

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debnes_dfw_tx Fort Worth, TX(Zone 8a) Jun 02, 2007

Very similar ceejay, I agree. However I am not seeing the loop on the end and my guy is more of a diamond shape overall, not rounded like this third instar soldier nymph. When I saw him syringing my tiny caterpillar he emmediatly succomed to an untimely accident, explaining why he may be slightly distorted in the photo.
Functionally speaking the same as the soldier nymph..even to specifically targeting swallowtails as a food source.
It figures I will get something like him bc I cultivate larval hosts for at least 5 different swallowtails. I am such a stickler for being exact, that I would like to see some other possibilities before marking the thread as solved.

TYVVM!!
:-Deb

Post #3563735

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ceejaytown The Woodlands, TX(Zone 9a) Jun 02, 2007

I was thinking that the loop on the end was perhaps from another source. I am not familiar with any bugs with that particular asspect. Oops! Did I spell that wrong? Teehee.....

This message was edited Jun 1, 2007 9:33 PM