A Bug's Life

A few days ago, Tricia and I poured a cup of coffee and walked around the yard. Sometimes we move so fast doing all sorts of things, that we just enjoy slowing down and taking the time to observe our surroundings.  Sometimes some of the most interesting things are right under our noses, but we don't take the time to observe and take it all in.

As we were walking, I happened to look up toward the eaves on the northern side of our home and something caught my eye.  It looked like a swarm of bees that was "bearding" and had attached itself to the side of the house.  Wow, are we being taken over by more bees?  I like our one colony, but I don't want more...

What is this?

As I looked closer, I noticed that whatever it was, it wasn't only on our roof, but on the side of the house as well.  And it's not bees.

It's a bug

As I looked a little closer, I saw exactly what they were: they are Leaf Footed Bugs and there are hundreds and hundreds of them.  In the close-up below, you can see why they are called leaf-footed bugs.  They have little thing on their back legs that looks like a leaf.  Sort of cool looking, but if you grow tomatoes or citrus, you know that these things are wretched creatures.

Leaf footed bug

Like a plague, they arrive and feed on your crops.  They are related to stink bugs and have a piercing mechanism on their mouth that allows them to pierce vegetables and fruits and suck the juice out of them. Their natural predators are birds, spiders and assassin bugs. 

I learned that the reason that they are piled up like this is that in the fall they bunch up in the piles you see above and below to overwinter.  Those groups are called aggregations, but I think I'll call them aggravations.  If they are still there this evening, I'm going to kill them all so they won't be around to inflict pain on my tomatoes and citrus in the spring.

RIP Leaf footed bugs

All these bugs might make you think that we have plagues of insects in Biblical proportions that sweep through and devour our crops, but believe it or not, there are some good, beneficial insects around our place.  Take for instance this fellow:

Let us prey!

A Praying Mantis!  He was on the bricks right below the leaf footed bugs.  And there was another out on the gate post going into the pasture.  They are such curious looking bugs!

The Praying Mantis

They don't actually pray (that I know of).  They actually prey on other insects like mosquitoes, flies, crickets, and moths.  The link I posted above says that they have been known to kill lizards, small mammals and hummingbirds.  Wow!  That would be something to see!

While I want to reduce the population of leaf-footed bugs, I'd certainly like to see the Praying Mantis population increase substantially.  We need more good bugs around the place.  We don't use pesticides so having a bunch of praying mantis' around would be a good thing.  If you look in the background of the picture above, you can see the green of the fall garden.  Perhaps this Praying Mantis hanging out on the gatepost is letting me know that he's raising a brood of beneficial insects to help me control the bad insects.  We'll see...