Friend or Foe #7

A continuation of our thread where we discuss insects and other critters in the garden and whether or not they are beneficial or pests.

It's way past the time when I should've started up this thread again - but better late than never!

Here's a link to the Friend or Foe #6 thread. It has links to previous threads or how to get to them... http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/546705/ .

Our first insect this time isn't harmful or helpful. It can actually best be described as "ephemeral" in that as an adult, it doesn't live very long. For the short time that they do live, however, they are often pretty insects.

This is a mayfly (order Ephemeroptera).



This message was edited Jun 13, 2006 2:52 AM

Here is a close-up so you can see the eyes and wings better. The wings held above the body like that are characteristic as are the long tails (seen in the first picture). A mayfly can have two wings or four wings and can have two tails or three, depending on the species.

So glad you started this up again, Night Bloom. Thank you! These are such helpful threads to me.

Oooh. I didn't know about the multiple tails. I'll have to be on the lookout.

This guy was in the mullein yesterday. The large on was yellow and black and the smaller ones were bright green and black. I hope you can see him. I tried to zoom in and save it to post that photo; but for some reason my software wasn't doing the save.

I figured out another way. Here's a close-up.

At first I thought that this was a cucumber beetle, but then I saw the hemelytra and decided this was a bug (Hemiptera). Plant bug (family Miridae) looked like the most likely from the shape, and looking at bug guide under Miridae, I think you've got a four lined plant bug here.

Here's a link to check it out and see if it's a match... http://bugguide.net/node/view/13220/bgpage .

That's definitely him, Night Bloom, right down to the 2 dots. No wonder I couldn't ID him, I would've called him a 2 dot plant bug, rather than a 4 line plant bug. :)

A post in another thread reminded me of this interesting - to me anyway - group of insects: gall making insects. These fall under the "sort of foe, but not really harmful" category, and many of these galls are quite interesting to look at. Most don't do any lasting harm to the trees they inhabit. Oak trees are especially prone to getting galls.

Here is an example of one species of oak gall. These are called wood sower galls, and they are made by small wasps. Here is what the galls look like...

And here is what the wasps look like that emerge from the galls...

Thanks for posting this, Night Bloom - I checked my galls today and no change yet! :) I love how I always run into new mysteries of nature to learn about in the gardens!

Can anyone identify these critters? There are several of them on my geranium. They produce lots of tiny red insects (I believe they are 6-legged, but they are so tiny it's hard to tell).

Is that a chrysalis? I've never seen anything like that.

sebeck, I had those on my orange tree and panamaCreel id'd it for me as cottony cushion scale (Icerya purchasi)
http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/fruit/cottony_cushion_scale.htm

PudgyMudpies is right about it being a cottony scale, and a cottony cushion scale is most probable (although there are also cottony Azalea scales and one other species I don't recall off the top of my head).

These usually have a bunch of natural enemies that keep the population down, but mosquito spraying or a recent pesticide application can sometimes allow for them to build up (because their natural enemies got zapped). Normally I would suggest something like summer strength horticultural oil, but if it is as hot in Texas as it is here for us, that might actually be a bad idea (it could cook your plants). Insecticidal soap is an option - especially if your geraniums attract butterflies and bees that you would rather not hurt - but do it soon! The little red guys are the crawlers and they are the most vulnerable stage - the older juveniles and adults are more hardy and won't die as easily.