I found a bug on my cornflowers yesterday that I don't recognize. They are red and look kind of like a cross between a big red ant and a spider. They have some dark markings and are about 1/4 inch long with fairly long legs. Their posture is wierd--their behind kind of sticks up in the air.
I'm also afraid I have leaf hoppers.
Can I get rid of these insects with diluted dish soap? I've used that successfully on aphids on my roses.
Thanks---
Eva
HelpBug ID
Well my first guess would have been aphids, but if you know what those are....try assassian bugs...maybe this one? http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/8676/
Thanks! My aphids are green--or at least that's what I thought they were. These are at least two times as big. Seems like they are totally red, but that's the closest thing I've seen. Do I need to get rid of them, and how?
I have a picture but can't figure out how to attach it.
To attach a pic, just click on the "browse" button below the text box. It will pull up your C drive files. Navigate to your picture and click open. You will see the line by the browse button now has text. Just click "preview" to make sure it is the right photo...and send. If it isn't the right photo just use the back button and load again.
OK. Trying...
Hooray! I thought I'd tried that once, but I must've done something wrong. Can you see the critter? They were back today and I sprayed them off with the hose, but I'm sure they'll be back.
Anybody know what they are for sure?
Take a look at the pictures here.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/561/
That's it! I'm glad to know what it is, and even more glad to know that I don't need to get rid of it. I think they are "sucking" on my cornfowers, especially the buds. I can't see any other insect on them at all. Even if they are I'm happy to sacrifice a few buds.
Thanks so much for the help.
Eva
Thanks for that informative link. I can vouch for the fact that they do sting. It smarts! Good to know they are a good bug tho.
You might have leaf footed bug nymphs. They did a job on my cardoon and have started to move on to the purple hyacynth beans.
Once they mature they are hard to get rid of. The adults do bite.
Oh, dear---I think you're right! I found a picture of them, and they're even on a flower similar to mine. How do I get rid of them without killing good bugs, too?
I take a cup of soapy water and thump them into it.
There are several ways to tell assassin bug nymphs (good guys) from leaf-footed bug nymphs (bad guys). They are the same color and that is confusing.
1. There were two of them, together. Assassin bugs are only together at hatching, and very tiny then. If you see bugs "in congregation" they are having a picnic - and your plant is the potato salad.
2. These nymphs have two little black dots on their backs = leaf-footed bugs.
3. As they molt and grow bigger, the back legs will take on that leaf-footed look.
Heads/necks: They also are plumper, and have what I call "no-necks". Assassin bugs are slender and have elongated heads, and bigger eyes.
Mouth parts: Leaf-footed bugs have long thin mouth parts - the "straw" that they suck plant juices with. Assassin bugs "straw" are shorter, curved and heavier, and don't reach under their bodies like those of the leaf-footed bugs. Assassin bugs have to grab their prey and stick that straw into them and inject their poison, and a long straw would get in the way. Leaf-footed bugs can loll around all day, whip out that thin straw that they keep tucked away under their bodies when not eating, and just stand there and slurp plant juices leisurely.
And always look at what they're eating. If their straw is stuck into a plant, it's a bad guy. Assassin bugs eat only insects.
I hope this helps.
Sorry CJ......
IMHO.....The Assassin bug eaters are the bad ones too in my book because they eat my caterpillars and butterflies that I plant the plants for. I used to view the praying mantis as good too....until it killed a Painted Lady bf I was watching. I don't spray my yard because I want to encourage the butterflies; so the good, bad, and ugly all come by now and then.
True - an assassin bug in a butterfly garden is NOT a good guy. It is definitely all relative.
Thanks so much for the explanation--it was very helpful. There were usually two of them together at least. They were only on my cornflowers. I started just spraying them with a very diluted soapy water solution and they curled up and died. Sad that I got a sinister pleasure out of it. I'm careful to spray only what's necessary, but that works for me on aphids, too. I'm going to have to look up the mature leaf hopper to make sure I don't already have them. I haven't seen any more nymphs, thank goodness. I have surprisingly few pests in my garden.
I used to love my praying mantises too, until I learned that they would also eat hummers.
Yep, that is what I learned too.
But I also have a different view of the large dragonflies now.. Earlier this year I put more shubunkin fish in my pond and one came up missing right away. Later I added two small fantail goldfish. I saw one laying near the edge of the pond the next day. Thinking it was dead I picked it up and found a DF Larva clamped to it's tail. I pulled it off and tossed it, but the fish disapeared a couple days later. I figured the DF killed it.
Sheila, DF's have a different kind of metamorphosis than we usually think of - a gradual metamorphosis. They live out their lives as nymphs (called nyads, in the case of DFs) in the water, and when they are ready to change from that state into adults, they don't pupate, but climb onto something at the surface where the skin of the nyad splits open and an adult DF emerges. Now, I guess the larger nyads could eat very small fish - but their diet is made up of whatever they can fit into their mouths in the way of small water creatures, mostly insects in the water. If that nyad was on the fish's tail, it seems like it would be too small to eat it (unless I misunderstood). What I think happened here was the nyad had climbed to the surface where the fish lay, and was using it as something to clamp onto while it moulted into adulthood.
http://animal-facts-trivia.blogspot.com/2008/11/dragonfly-amazing-insect-predator.html
nyads: http://centexnaturalist.com/foldermainmenus/sfaquaticinvertebrates/folderaquaticinsects/faquins.html
Dragonfly emerging from a nyad: http://www.free-nature-photos.org/fotodb/42_new_dragonfly.jpg
I am sure you are right, but it was holding the fish in shallow water where it couldn't swim away. The fish was only twice as long as the large nymph as in the first link, or nyad as your second link stated. I have been bit by them a few times while cleaning the pond too!
Here is a nyad casing found shortly after that. So we snapped a few pics. I have seen them come out of the water and morph too.
I don't have goldfish any more. But when I did, I didn't ever see any problems between them and the dragonfly nymphs. (Looked the other way around, if anything--goldfish eating "bugs" that swam in their path.) Could it be that something else was going on that was causing problems for the fish, and the nymphs just capitalized on a weak critter?
Even so, don't you think the dragonflies are still worth having? They are so beautiful. And they really help with the skeeter population.
Oh, I would go for the dragonflies over ordinary goldfish any day. Just got a bit suspecious of it being the culprit after finding that. These big guys are the ones that run the show around our pond.
Don't you just love those? They're my favorites.
He does share his space with the blue ones on occassion. But the orange ones run off the Gulf Frits even. LOL!
