This is the first year I've tried to have a garden and I'm pretty clueless about bugs. I know about slugs, and I recently learned all about thrips thanks to this board, but I was hoping someone could tell me what these guys are...
The second bug here I have seen many of on my container impatiens, and also a few on the daylilies. The coleus in the container with the impatiens is all eaten up...by this or some other culprit?
And these..in the first picture these guys kind of cluster around each other and seem to be up to no good. These are on astilbe, but I saw some this morning on some opened daylilies and the flowers appeared damaged. Sorry this is such a bad pic....couldn't get the camera to focus on them.
And the guy in the bottom pic I have only seen on daylily buds.
Thanks very much.
Here are my guesses as to what the insects are...
First picture, top insect - This I'm pretty sure is a firefly or something related to one.
First picture, bottom insect - This looks like a small cockroach nymph. Not a bad cockroach, but one that lives in the leaf litter and helps to decompose said leaf litter. Some of these can actually be quite pretty when they are adults. (Some are gold colored. Even pale sea foam green colored ones can be found in warm climates)
Second picture, top insect - These appear to be some kind of seed bug (family Lygaeidae), but that is a guess. There are a few kinds of bugs (Hemiptera), that can look similar in appearance. You may wish to try this website... http://bugguide.net . To help out here's a staring point - scroll throug the families and see if any look like yours... http://bugguide.net/node/view/64/bgpage. Miridae are on page 1 and Lygaeidae are on page 2. Those would be my two most likely picks for what you've got.
Second picture, bottom insect. This is a stink bug of some kind, but I can't tell whether or not it is a good stink bug or a bad stink bug. You can either try browsing for your guy here... http://bugguide.net/node/view/182/bgpage .Or you can pick one up and look at its "beak" - a fat beak, like on this guy... http://bugguide.net/node/view/21140 would be a predatory stink bug (they come in many colors, not just the red and black here.) If it has a long, skinny beak... sort of like this... http://bugguide.net/node/view/63596/bgimage it's probably a plant feeder.
Good luck. If you have dial-up like I do, the links might take a while to load.
Night_Bloom, thanks very much for the help. I think you might be right about that bug on the astilbe...it looks alot like one of those in the links.
BTW, I can't believe there is such thing as a good cockroach- blech! Interesting that the first bug could be in the firefly family. I haven't seen one since I was a kid, in Ohio.
