Friend or Foe?

Thanks for posting more great pics, NB! Stilt bugs are rather elegant looking -- especially on such a strikingly colored background!

BTW, I don't know if it's the effects of the sun & wind or if there's some lovely insect outside that preys on them, but once again putting my lemon & lime trees out on the deck has "saved" them from bad winter infestations of scale and spider mites! :-)

What an interesting thread....I just happened over here and found this...thank you all who are providing it and adding to it.
This is an insect that I had quite afew of last year. They seem to eat daylily buds and destroy the blossoms...
Could you help me identify it please....

picture lady, all I can say is maybe in the beetle family? I am still learning about bugs.

nightbloom, I gather they are lady bug larvae, though they are more red than black. Will just watch them for now. Perhaps that picture of the beetle just happened to also have the ladybug largae in it. How bout I search for it and post a link...

http://www.gardensalive.com/pestguide.asp?article_id=35&Type=solution

This message was edited May 10, 2005 12:28 PM

I think what i have are the ladybug larvae. I check the plants everyday, have not seen any CPB, nor any eggs. But the larvae have been crawling everywhere. Some days I would find a dozen or so on top of the corn row cover, so I put some underneath. I figured they were hungry or sleepy :-)

But see how these guys look similar?

picturelady,
that looks exactly like the striped cucumber beetle (acalymma vittatum) in my insect book.
They do just what you say, plus other damage. I had some last year. They were too busy decimating the squash to mess with the nearby daylilies though. (hmm - maybe plant some squash as a trap plant? But you might just encourage them too!).
According to my organic insect control book, parastic nematodes go after the larvae. You can buy them from places like GardensAlive and Peaceful Valley.

Night_Bloom - the plants with the persistent aphids are borderline weed (some kind of goldenrod I think), and turning out to be pretty invasive. So I think my next move may be to try to remove them with aphids in situ! Maybe leave a couple of plants so the aphids I miss don't have to choose another plant to colonize?

The spotted cuc. beetle is kind of greenish yellow? not leaf green right? Are there any lady beetles that approach the same coloration?I thought there were some yellowish / red-yellowish ones?

saw a dragon fly yesterday! are they all good? all bad? mixed lot? I've always liked looking at them so much that I never thought about their role in the garden.

margu - I finally got my to my "Caterpillars of Pacific Northwest Forests and Woodlands" book and I couldn't find any that were entirely black, BUT if you look at this picture of a banded woollybear (Pyrrharctia isabella) - http://www.ipmimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1327041 - which is in your area, you can see that not all banded wollybears are "banded", so my guess is this is what you have.

picturelady - I believe paani is right. This looks to me like a striped cucumber beetle too, except I think yours is the western species - Acalymma trivittatum - which has the reddish thorax like yours does. The only other critter that it might be - because the coloration is quite close - is the Threelined potato beetle (Lema trlinea), but this mostly eats nightshade family plants, especially tomatillo. So I would tend to go with the western striped cucmber beetle which has a wider host range.

Tamara - those pictures aren't detailed enough for me to see much unfortunately. I'm gong to provide some links with really good pictures of Colorado potato beetle larvae so you can compare them to the one above for the lady beetle larvae.
http://www.ipmimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1355025

http://www.ipmimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1435023

And here are the links I promised to the lady beetle pupae. Now some of these do look similar to the larvae above. The main distinguishing factor would be that these are immobile.

http://www.ipmimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1223028

http://www.ipmimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=9005043

http://www.ipmimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1328013

http://www.ipmimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1242066

http://www.ipmimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=3066082

You can click on the pictures for an even larger view. As you can see, even the pupae vary greatly in their coloration and the way they look (note how "spiny" the last ones are). That site has even more pictures of pupae if you search using "lady beetle." There's a link to the main site at the top of the page ("home").

paani - spotted cucumber beetles are sort of lime green - but not the color of real limes, but what most people call lime green: a bright, lightish colored green, almost chartreuse. And, yes, some lady beetles are almost yellowish in color (which can get them confused with the Mexican bean beetle of which they share a family - Coccinellidae), but I don't think I've ever seen one with a greenish tint. The "yellowish" ones usually have some orange to them.

And dragonflies are good. Quite a few of them eat mosquitoes. Of course some of the larger ones might get the occasional butterfly, but other than that they are good predators.

N_B,

ahem, I think the mystery is solved: my "spotted cucumber beetles" of last year were really mexican bean beetles! I just looked them up and they look much more like the ones I kept wondering about -- lady bug or not, lady bug or not?
I remember the yellow eggs on the backside of leaves too.

my book describes the larvae as "fat yellowish orange 5/16" grubs with long branching spines". sound accurate?

these guys really did a lot of damage last year. And my beans have holes already, so I'm going hunting...

Tonight I have a couple of beetle predators for you. The first is an adult tiger beetle (family Cicindelidae). This is an adult of the kind of larvae I gave a picture of above that lives in the holes in the ground. The adult beetle is also a predator of insects.

And here's another beetle predator. This is a soldier beetle (family Cantharidae). It somewhat resembles fireflies in body shape and coloration, but it doesn't glow. A very few of these beetles are omnivorous eating vegetables, and some will visit flowers for nectar and pollen, but most are predatory both as larvae and as adult beetles.

This message was edited May 11, 2005 4:45 AM

oh, goodie, I know I've seen the soldier beetles in my garden! Hopefully they will return and snack on any wayward been beetles.

That tiger beetle is handsome! I'm thinking I've seen similar beetles with different coloration (also irridescent)..... do these good guys only come in green?

critterologist - nope. Tiger beetles come in a wide array of colors. Not even all of them are irredescent. Some are brownish colored and mottled to blend in with a sandy substrate. They generally run quickly though and usually fly when approached. And they all have those huge mandibles in the front with which to better chomp on insects.

Hi Night_Bloom, yes, that pic does indeed look like the fuzzy little creature. I may have to wait until fall now before I find another one, but when I do, I'll pick it up and examine it closely. I was planting yesterday, but didn't dig up any of the mysterious red spiders. ;-(

Night bloom - maybe you could start another 'friend or foe continued' thread as this one is getting long??

BTW I was able to help save someone else's Viburnum today thanks to you:)

-Kim

Glad that I could be of help, bluekat76. What was wrong with the Viburnum by the way, if you don't mind me asking? You've got me curious.

And as requested, I have started a new thread, so I'll see everyone over there.

Here's the new thread http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/509615/

I really like the predator pictures you've been posting. I've seen a couple of them in my garden and was wondering whether or not to encourage them.

Here's a picture of a guy I've seen twice--each time on a different species of Santolina. He's a little over a quarter of an inch long. Don't you like the way I was able to get a photo of him lounging on his side!!! Ok, so it was posed. And he was dead. And my nephew took the picture.

I've seen another critter who is not so willing a model. He is red all over and about half an inch long, with a broad, flat abdomen which is frequently tipped up. Any ideas pop into your mind, or do I need to wait until he is more "willing" and take a photo?

Thanks for all your help.

sebek - the insect in your photo above is a four-lined plant bug (family Miridae, Poeciliocapsus lineatus). This is not a good bug. It can cuase leaf damage. If the number start accumulating, a low-impact control method such as a systemic imidicloprid or a short lasting natural pyrethrin

The problem with your red bug is that the behaviour sounds like that of a wheel bug nymph - see this picture here... http://www.ipmimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1430015 or a closely related assassin bug. But nymphs of the plant bug are also red in color. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture to link to for the plant bug nymph. I'd probably need a picture to tell which you have. The shape of a Reduviidae (wheel type bug) would be quite a bit different than that of the Miridae (plant bug), but I couldn't say which you have from just the description you have here. Though the size is pretty large for a plant bug, so I'd more go for the wheel bug - see the adult picture I posted on the new thread. A wheel bug is a great predator bug.

See you on the new thread (link above).

This message was edited May 16, 2005 4:00 AM

I can't find the pictures of the black beetles with red heads in either thread. Maybe it was one of the links... will look again later...

bump

bump (one more).

Good bump! I really need to go through and re-read the Friend/Foe threads each year... :-)