Infested...HELP!!!!!!???

This insect is driving me nuts!! In my research I can only come up with 2 insects: Woolly Apple Aphid, (which this insect on my plants do not have wings) or Cottony Maple Scale (which it is not on the Maples but everything else!)

There are two sexes, I guess, on is pure white and the other is brown, they jump when disturbed. They carry (I think they are carrying??) some eggs? It looks like cotton.

I spray them all day, off of everything, hosta, black-eyed Susans, some weeds, sapling, and even on Marigolds!!

Please help me identify this insect, I am obsessed with it!!! I need to know how to control it.

I have killed them with Dawn soap, Oil, and even Kethan and Sevin Dust (which i hate to use chemicals).

I see them in the neighbors yard as well.

Please help!!!! Thanks!!! Photos to follow....

Photo of Maybe the female????

Male maybe??? He will loose the fuzzy thing he is carring when i kill him in water.

These photos were from on the Hosta, just to show how small they are.

Strangest thing I have ever seen. Thousands of them all over the place!!

Even when I kill a bunch of them, the next day the plants are covered the next day with just as much as the day before!!

I have the same things on my hostas, and I'm pretty sure they're mealybugs. Here's a link with more info: http://www.thedailycitizen.com/articles/2005/06/25/news/features/featurescolumnsherri.txt

And here's a photo of them: http://www.naturescontrol.com/image/mealy.jpg

Hope this helps!
Kelly

That is a very good possibility. I will look to see which species it is. (I actually thought mealybugs were the gray roll up bugs!) Thanks for the great article!

looking at a lot of pics of mealybugs, I'm not sure if that is the same or not. The pics I see the insect has lots of legs, where the insect that i have has less legs, unless that is something else.

The white bug is smooth and oval shape. When it jumps it looses the fuzzy tail like thing that it carries. I did see two dark dots on it's back. It has legs like any other bug.

The brown one is smooth also, it also looses the fuzzy stuff.

I am going to try to get better pictures of them. My camera has a hard time zooming in on such a small bug.

Here is a photo of one of the white ones after I knocked it into hot water. This is the backside of it.

I hope someone can help us figure this out, because the first and third pictures you have look exactly like what I have on my hostas, and it would be nice to know what it is so I can do something about it. I still think it looks more like some kind of mealybug (which I guess are forms of scale insects, just like the cottony maple scale). Does anyone else out there know more about what we have here?

Kelly

Mealy bugs wiped out all my Moss Rose last year before I found out what they were. When I see anything that even LOOKS like one now I use "Sevin Ready-To-Use Bug Killer" in the spray bottle. You only have to spray once and so far it has worked great. I spray the whole plant, especially under the leaves and in the joints. I also read that they will live in the soil and can infect any plant that you may plant in there later. I threw pots, plants and soil in the canal!
Pati

PS Even if they aren't mealy bugs, I bet this would kill what you have, It says it kills over 100 insect pests and you can even use it on vegtables.



This message was edited Jul 7, 2005 9:50 PM

jenbrink - these look like some kind of hopper to me. The fact that they hop also says hopper. I can't tell what kind, but most likely in the superfamily Fulgaroidea - go here... http://bugguide.net/node/view/12744/bgpage to see some familes (There should be a second page - link is at the bottom). You'll see a few examples of nymps with white stuff coming out and others that look like your second picture which might just be an older version. Clicking on any of the familes and then the "images" button at the top should give you even more pictures.

The white stuff isn't eggs but protective waxy stuff which some species of hoppers exude to be unpalatable to some predators and to keep from drying out.


Okay, I apologize if the following sounds preachy, but here goes...

Patischell - I know that Sevin (including the dust) is a popular choice, and it isn't too bad for people (which is why it can be used on vegetables), but being a person who likes (and relies on) "good bugs", I cringe when I hear of people using it all the time. In addition to the over 100 pest insects Sevin kills, it can also kill beneficial insects, including bees and butterflies visiting your flowers. It can do this even many days after you have treated the plant, because it has a residual effect. The bees may not die right away, which also means they could potentially go back to the colony and bring tainted nectar, pollen, etc. and kill more bees.

I very rarely have to spray - I sprayed my eggplants twice this year for flea beetles, but that's all - but when I do, I use pyrethrins (Ortho caries a ready to use pyrethrin spray). Unless you have resistant insects, this usually does the job, and it isn't residual which means that beneficial insects visiting later will not be killed.

In my flower garden, I don't spray for insects at all. The only flowers that seem to suffer from this are sometimes the Rudbekia, but the caterpillars that eat them are amusing (they put pieces of petals all over their bodies so that they resemble miniature dance hall girls - hee), so I let them be. I have lots of beneficial insects that I think take care of things pretty well, because I have no major problems with the rest of my flowers - and I have lots.

Another alternative to pyrethrins could be the systemic material imidicloprid which is in some Bayer Advanced products. This should get rid of most of the sucking insects - hoppers, aphids, mealybugs, etc as well as sometimes Japanese beetles, but shouldn't hurt things that just land on the plants or drink nectar. It also doesn't affect caterpillars. This might be a good idea for your hoppers, because the waxy stuff the bugs exude may protect them some from pyrethrins unless you spray them well. The systemic will also last for a long time, so you don't have to keep respraying, and since it only affects insects eating your plants, it won't hurt the "good bugs."

I don't know if it's the same for the hoppers, but sometimes in areas where mosquito spraying is high, trees and shrubs get lots of scale insects (which are also Homoptera), because there are no parasites and predators to stop them. The same can happen with over-spraying your plants.

Night_Bloom, I certainly DON'T think you're "preachy". I respect your knowledge and your willingness to share it. I lurk here every day and enjoy the pictures and explanations. I have learned not to come here before first coffee though, you never know what you're going to see! LOL

I need to tell you though, that one mad spraying on the Moss Rose was the only time I used the SEVIN. I know that something eats holes in my Coleus leaves, but it doesn't kill them, so I feel like I'm just shareing with some little creature like I do with my Passion Vine and the caterpillers. In fact I'm very lucky not to have a lot of problems with bugs.

So, that being said, I keep my SEVIN in reserve for Mealy Bugs and let nature take it's course with everything else. My biggest problem is with moles/voles, and the two mini-Dachshunds and BIG tom cat take care of them nicely, thankyouverymuch! LOL
Pati

Hee Patischell - your dachshunds sound more talented than my Mum's dachshund when we were growing up. Her name was Heidi, but the thing she seemed to find most often was dead toads - which she then proceded to roll on. You never saw my Mum run so fast as when she saw Heidi upside down doing that little shimmy. Into the bath for the stinky puppy - hee. She never seemed to register that roll on a dead toad = get a bath. Other than that though, she seemed to be a pretty smart dog.

And it's nice of you to share your Coleus. Mine so far seem to not have attracted anything. I do seem to be sharing some of my Impatiens (they can certainly handle it - they are getting quite large) and my Rudbekia (black-eyed susans), but that's okay. I just wish I had butterflies eating my passion vines and bronze fennel this year - *sigh* - I miss my baby caterpillars, but with this 20 year low in butterfly population in Georgia, I'm losing hope of getting any babies this year.

So far I haven't had a scare with insects yet - flea beetles are as close as I get. My biggest problem, besides the weeds, is disease. I hate to do it, but I usually have to spray at least once or twice a year or I could lose all my vegetables. I did lose my potatoes this year, but so far have been lucky with the rest.

Well there was that one time 3 years ago when deer came in and ate almost all my tomato plants that I had grown from seed for 2 1/2 months. Almost 25 varieties gone in the 3 hours we were gone. We live inside the city limits too. I had seen the deer once earlier in the year and thought - "aww how cute." I never expected them to eat the tomatoes - which I thought were poisonous (leaves). Then I wanted to kill. They even ate the ones I had still in pots hardening off and ready to plant. It was too late to try again, so I had to settle for store bought varieties (not as good). I only managed to save about 4 half-eaten plants. The rest were to the ground. I'm soooo glad those deer never came back - the silly people who owned the house before us put out salt licks for them. Good thing I didn't have all my hostas back them. I heard that deer love to eat them.

Night Bloom: YES!!!! Family Acanaloniidae - Acanaloniid Planthoppers, Thank you so so much, that was driving me nuts not knowing what it was. And the white must be nymphal Fulgoroidea. They are always together.

I just spray them offf everyday with dawn to control them. I try not to use chemicals if I can help it.

The Bug link is an excellent resource. Thanks again!!