CLOSED: CLOSED: a bug I don't recognize

found a family of these guys on our potted rhododendrons.
maybe someone could id it for us.

jack

Definitely aphids...

Yup...aphids.

100% say aphids so I will treat them as such. Biggest ones I've seen , we must feed them good.

jack

I'm not so sure they are aphids. The top one looks to have the two spikes on the tail end which most aphids seem to have, but the bottom one doesn't look to have those. The bottom one also has a long pair of antennae, it does look very similar to the top one in other respects though.

They might be aphids, but I haven't seen any with long antennae, this is more typical of a nymph or young such as a katydid which start very small and go through several stages. These nymphs eat aphids, so maybe the bottom one was about to eat the top one! Some aphids are fairly big, but the size also might suggest they are not aphids.

Once I had a tiny thing on my hand which appeared to be an aphid, I had the compact camera so took a pic of it and on enlarging it was a tiny nymph with stripy legs.

I try to leave aphids as they are always eaten by something, if you don't use chemicals (or squash them!) nature will take care of it.

Maybe these are nymphs of a type of tree cricket. The legs on yours are very long, besides I have a lot of rhododendrons but never have I seen aphids on them.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/148766/bgimage

There's a species of aphid in the American west that uses rhododendrons as the host plant, Macrosiphum rhododendri. I can't find a picture of that one, but there are lots of images of others in the same genus with long antennae:

http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=macrosiphum&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

You could easily be right!

I found a mention of this aphid on teh Rhododendron Society. The last paragraph of 'Insects':

"Other insects are a rhododendron aphid, Macrosiphum rhododendri Wilson, which disfigure young growth in Oregon and Washington, and the rhododendron whitefly, Dialeurodes chittendeni Laing, in the same area which weakens plants if the population builds up to large numbers."

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JARS/v26n4/v26n4-kehr.htm

It appears to be in Denmark too, across the water from Washington?

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q9v9ZC--b5wC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=Macrosiphum+rhododendri&source=web&ots=ItiLwmQfb5&sig=Wykio2v3ayn6aEx6fDPprxDLA1Q&hl=en#PPA10,M1

There is a google link sixth down 'Diseases and pests of ornamental plants' states it's a pink and green species, I can't quite load the pages on the google book link though. It does mention Oregon.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Macrosiphum+rhododendri&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

They are definitely aphids, the long spikes are the cornicles (used to pass excess sugar (honeydew) from feeding on the sap). The antennae length is typical for many aphids.