Trying to identify these Little guys.
They've invaded my sailboat. I find them on plywood mostly.
They're very small, and easily crushed by the slightest brush of a finger.
The only time I've seen them around people food was when they were on this onion.
If possible, I'd also like to know what's attracted them, and how to prevent them from coming back.
They're aphids of some kind, but I can't imagine why they'd be on a sailboat?!
I'll look up aphids to try to find out ones that might be attracted to plywood, or humidity.
we have hundreds of them. but luckily so far, they seem to be staying in only certain areas.
Thanks!
They're feeding on the onion - you can see yellow stains where some of them clusters. All aphids have no interest in dead wood - nothing for them to stab in and drink saps - so they may have been blown on the boat from heavily infected host plants so your onion must have been heaven to those starving insects - they have weak wings to none so your boat is a island to them - after all, open bodies of water is often very windy and blows those lightweight insects out of their host plants on the body of water - a solid structure is safety to them as they won't last a second in the water.
It would seem to me they came with the onions. Do you have a lot of onions in a bag? I would check it out.
A description of the Onion Aphid (Neotoxoptera formosana):
"Wingless females are oval, small to medium sized, purplish-red to almost black, have black antennae, and the cornicles are dark but paler than the body of the insect. Winged adults are dark red to black with the veins in the wings heavily black-bordered."
http://www.uga.edu/vegetable/aphids.html
A pic,
http://photos.eppo.org/index.php/image/991-neotoxoptera-formosana-01
http://uni2004.hp.infoseek.co.jp/htm/sonotakontyuu4%20.htm
Nope. we only bought that one onion. There are hundreds that are scurrying around that ignored the onion.
They really seem to like unfinished plywood.
So they could be onion aphids. I also looked up Banana aphids, they look similar.
Either way, everyone is pretty sure they are some type of aphid?
Next question:
Anyone know the best way to be rid of them? they just wander around, so I don't like the idea of a spray. To me the best solution would be feeding them something that would kill them. know of any products?
Soapy water kills aphids. You could try that or try the insecticidal soaps like the "safer" brand. Almost any store with a garden section will have it.
I wonder if they might be some kind of conifer aphid - some of those are black and get pretty big, for aphids, anyway.
