I see one or two around occasionally, but my friend Mardella had a total infestation on a plant, ate all the foliage and was working on the roots when she dug it up to throw it away.
Any ideas what it is. One picture is on my patio from her baggy. The other is on one of my coleus.
Here's the one on my coleus.
They look like giant sized mealy bugs. Do they grow that much bigger in Fla? Maybe they are related nasties.
Okay, this might sound like an odd question, but are the first and second bugs the same? I ask, because from what I can see, the first bugs look like true bugs (Hemiptera), and here's the odd thing: bugs can't chew. Bugs have piercing-sucking mouthparts - sorry about the science babble. I'm an Entomologist, I can't help it - which means that they can only suck plant juices, so they couldn't actually chew the leaves. Mealy bugs are homopterans, but they can't chew either. In both cases, there would be wilting maybe, but the plant would still be there. The picture isn't close enough for me to be sure, but the first ones look more like bugs. The second one looks more like a small weevil beetle (Curculionidae) or a leaf beetle (Chrysomelidae), but again, it's tough to tell. The beetle might chew on your coleus a bit, but probably won't each much if there are only a few of them.
Sorry, you'd think I'd be better at this considering part of my job is to identify pictures of bugs people send to me, but I do admit these are new ones for me. Maybe we don't get these in Georgia. I'll take a look in my garden insect reference book and see if anything pops out at me, and if so, I'll give you a scientific name to google and you can see if that's what you've got.
Side note - there was a move to put Homopterans (Cicadas, mealybugs, aphids, etc) and Hemipterans (true bugs) all back into the Hemipetra, so really my use of Homoptera is wrong, but I'm stubborn and don't want to lump them together since that's not the way that I learned them. I hate it when they change the taxonomy around on me.
Night Bloom,
These are the same bugs. I'm sorry I couldn't get a better picture of them. I deleted a lot due to their blurriness.
I also did not see the plant that died. By the time the bugs got to me, the plant was already disposed of. I will go take a look at the bugs named and see if they are the same.
I have seen this bug around in my work too (house painting) but not in any major infestations. Just one at a time.
Thanks, I'll watch for more and do some looking too.
Molly
This message was edited Apr 24, 2005 6:56 AM
I forgot to say these guys fly. They also seem to be eating my Brug leaves. Although I haven't actually caught them in the act, the brugs sit right next to my coleus patch.
All right, I think I have pretty well pinned it down to this weevil. Anyone who reads this, I have traded with, keep in mind, I did not go to Sri Lanka and get these things.
http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/pi/enpp/ento/weevil-pest-alert.htm
I was thinking all along that it was the snails that were eating holes in the leafs of my brugs, passies and a couple other items. But it certainly looks like the feeding pattern of this weevil.
I have a call into a man at the Ag dept of UF to see how to knock these things back. Not sure if he will answer or what the answer will be since these are not native to Florida.
I sure hate to use pesticides on anything since I have been encouraging birds, bees and butterflys to come to my yard.
Molly
