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hczone6 Zone 6, OH(Zone 6a) Jun 15, 2007

I don't have a picture of this yet, but here's the description...

It's maybe 1/3 the size of a housefly. It lives outdoors. It seems to mainly be swarming all over my tall garden phlox. The color of the little beast is mostly orange, with sort of a stripe of black down the center. They don't seem to eat foliage, but rather suck on it or something. For whatever reason they seem to prefer tall garden phlox, although they now seem to be messing with my african daisy since I pulled out most of the phlox since they ruined it. The plant ends up over time looking like it's just got some disease and slowly looks unhealthy. But if you look close, you can see these bugs all over under the leaves. They fly off when you shake the plant. They somewhat resemble small versions of lightning bugs, but not exactly like them. All I know is they are driving me nuts and I can't stand them. If I'm not mistaken, these are the same bugs that eat the flower pedals on my rudbeckia goldsturm.

Any idea? Link to photo of what bug you think it is?

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jenbrink Cincinnati, OH(Zone 6a) Jun 16, 2007

One Cincy person to the other... I planted goldstrum last year from seed, since then I have seen some of the strangest bugs that love this plant.


See if the Milkweed bug is what you are seeing...
this one is more black than orange, but some of them are more orange with less black.
(could be the male/female color thing)


Thumbnail by jenbrink
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hczone6 Zone 6, OH(Zone 6a) Jun 16, 2007

Hmmm....the ones I'm seeing are all black with only orange down the center of the back. I'll try to get a picture as soon as I can. I'm going on vacation tomorrow so I'll be a little busy...but I'll try to get a picture today if I can. I'm not sure that bug is what I've got.

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hczone6 Zone 6, OH(Zone 6a) Jun 16, 2007

I guess your bug isn't far off from what mine looks like. Sorry for the bad photos. Out of focus and terrible light. The bug didn't sit still for me and I was in a hurry.

Thumbnail by hczone6
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hczone6 Zone 6, OH(Zone 6a) Jun 16, 2007

#2

Thumbnail by hczone6
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jenbrink Cincinnati, OH(Zone 6a) Jun 24, 2007

not sure what he is.

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jenbrink Cincinnati, OH(Zone 6a) Jun 24, 2007

These are the closest that I could find that look like your bug:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/107391/bgpage

http://bugguide.net/node/view/25902/bgpage

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claypa West Pottsgrove, PA(Zone 6b) Jun 24, 2007

That's the same genus I came up with a few days ago and forgot to send it, I guess. It's a likely candidate.

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hczone6 Zone 6, OH(Zone 6a) Jun 24, 2007

That second link looks very close to what I have. I got tired of them and let 'em have it with a good dose of liquid diazinon (spelling?). They ruined all but one phlox and the last one is in bad shape.

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