CLOSED: red bugs ID ? Please

Flora, IN(Zone 5a)

A bunch of these showed up on my saw horses outside.
Very pretty red ,so what are they?

Thumbnail by gardengus
West Pottsgrove, PA(Zone 6b)

I think they're wheel bug nymphs. They eat other insects:

http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/trees/wheel_bug.htm

http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/5786/

Washington, DC(Zone 6b)

Here is another great sight for bugs. Scroll down the page to find the Wheel Bug Nymph and the adult. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/866101/

Washington, DC(Zone 6b)

oops! Wrong link. http://www.whatsthatbug.com/assassin.html

Flora, IN(Zone 5a)

Thank you both so much for the ID and information.
I went outside and moved a couple bugs to the garden and my columbine, after reading they eat leafminners.

Fayetteville, AR(Zone 7b)

I hope you see this post. Wheel Bugs are Awseome! I have 3 on my sunflowers and they are really helping with the leafhoppers. I need about 20 more! Just don't pick them up, if they decide to bite you I've heard their stingers sting 10 times worse than a hornet and can take a couple months to heal, their venom is very strong. If you look at them, that long thing at their mouth, that is their stinger! If you can, pick a leafhopper, or any other type of leaf eating varnment, off of a plant and drop it close to a Wheel Bug and watch it attack it, it's the coolest thing! You'll notice they have very good eyesight too.

Flora, IN(Zone 5a)

I didn't pick them up,mostly because they looked fragile,now I am glad I didn't.
I guess I need to read some more. There are several more on the sawhorse just outside the garage I need to move. I did read they can be carnivorous,I would rather have them eat some bad bugs than each other.

Fayetteville, AR(Zone 7b)

Mine haven't been, I have a row of sunflowers and they walk from plant to plant, and pretty much stay out of each other's way, I guess. Yesterday I got a picture of a Daddy Long Legs Spider and a Wheel Bug on the same plant "staring" each other down. When I went to bed I was wondering who would win. I looked at the plant today and the spider is nothing but exoskeleton. Here's the picture of the standoff.

Thumbnail by crissyr
Fayetteville, AR(Zone 7b)

A few weeks ago I noticed I only had two on the sunflowers. I was wondering where the other went, and didn't see an exoskeleton anywhere (their molt looks different than when they are eaten.) So I was walking through the house that day and noticed something on my cat's scratching post, it was the wheel bug, and it was all tangled up in the carpet! I had read that until they get wings they will "hitch rides" in order to get places faster because they move so slow. Knowing how potentially dangerous it could be with it in the house, I went outside and got a pretty long branch with stiff, dead leaves on it. I came back in and held one of the dead leaves against the scratching post, just below the bug. The wheel bug simply walked up on the leaf. I carried it through the house and outside onto a sunflower plant. I held the dead leaf the bug was on up against a big sunflower leaf, it simply walked onto the sunflower, just like it knew what I was doing! I couldn't believe it! He was "hitching a ride" again. I just wonder who he hitched a ride on to get in the house in the first place.

Post a Reply to this Thread

Please or sign up to post.
BACK TO TOP