I'm conflicted. Yesterday I noticed a clump of baby Assassin Bugs (no idea which kind they are) on the Passion Flower vine. This vine is full of Gulf Fritillary caterpillars, so my first inclination was to kill as many of the baby ABugs as possible. But my days of randomly killing things I'm not educated about are gone I'm afraid, so I left them alone. I've done some web searching on ABugs this morning and I'm told they're beneficial because they will kill the "bad" bugs in your garden. Will they also kill GF caterpillars? If so, I will indeed squish as many of them as I can find when I get home tonight. If they aren't harmful to the 'cats, I will leave them alone. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Carla
Assassin bugs
Carla,
I was just reading a book this morning which said that Assasin Bugs have a sharp probusis, which they can stick into the cat's body and then suck em down like a slurpee! Squish away!
Adrienne
Carla, normally the predator bugs don't hang out in a bunch unless they are newly hatched. You may have Leaf-footed bugs, that look similar to ABs when young. Do you have a pic?
The ABs are considered beneficials because they eat other bugs including cats. I think they are very beneficial to the veggie gardener but not to us bufferfly raising people.
Be careful, they can bite you! I try to relocate the babies that don't have their wings yet, they can eat some pests off other plants that aren't a host for butterfly cats.
No, I don't have any photos. And yuck, Adrienne, I think I killed the mother of these things a couple of weeks ago. It was slurping up a cat, and I almost lost my dinner. Eeeewwwww!!! There's going to be some serious squishing going on in the PF vine tonight!
Carla
There ya go Carla,
Do be careful they do bite like Rox said. I see them all over the place here. One on my PV too, I noticed a few days ago. Way up on top where I cant reach. My PV is growing back really fast now. I haven't decided what to do with it yet. I have squashed a few when I got a good shot at them.
:-Deb