Garden Pests and Diseases: Friend or Foe #4, 0 by Night_Bloom

Night_Bloom wrote:
A continuation of our thread where we discuss insects in the garden and attempt to determine whether they are friendly or harmful.

Here is a link to the previous thread... http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/518029/ . The first post of that thread has links to the other previous threads.

Feel free to post your pictures of insects in your garden, and I will attempt to let you know whether or not they are good or harmful. I will also continue to post pictures of insects that you might see in your garden that are beneficial. I'll also from time to time post pictures of insects that might look intimidating or like they are harming your plants, but are in reality harmless.


Tonigt I'm posting one of those fearful looking insects. This is a dobsonfly (family Corydalidae). The males especially - which this is - look very intimidating. Now I will admit that when photographing this specimen (which was brougt in to me for identification), I did not pick it up. Even I was not going to test if those jaws would actually be able to grasp or not - hee - but this insect will not actively seek you out to bite you or anything. Thoe impressive jaws are used in mating contests against other males and perhaps for grasping females.

The larvae, called hellgramites, live in aquatic situations and are often used in fishing as bait . They are often considered beneficial, because they are active predators on aquatic insects, including blackfly larvae, and they provide a food source for fish.

As you can see from this photograph of a male dobsonfly on a ruler, these insects are quite large which is probably why this order of insects is called Megaloptera which means "ample wings".

This message was edited Jul 3, 2005 3:32 AM