please identify bugs
 

does anyone know what these critters are? if you look closely, you can see what i think were the eggs that they hatched from. the egg things were on my plant for several days, and i thought it was just some kind of poop. i guess i was wrong. they don't seem to have done any damage. i just sprayed them off with some water when i discovered them. they sure give me the heebie-jeebies though.

[img]http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f20/dexygus/redbugs.jpg[/img]

Looks like you've got stink/leaf footed bug nymphs. Hit 'em hard asap with an insecticidal soap (twice a week until you see significant reduction in population), because they will be really difficult to deal with as adults.

Garden Safe brand is an inexpensive brand you can pick up at the box store. It can make plants photosensitive, so I'd suggest you spray the plants on a shady day (or at the crack of dawn), then rinse it off after a few minutes. It works on contact -- no benefit to leaving the residue on the plants.

Wow, I've never seen leaf-footed bug, stink bug, or assassin bug nymphs that looked like that.

Wow, is that a positive ID, suze? I would have thought they were assassin bugs, and they were there to help me.

I think they may be assassin bugs.....
[url]http://www.richard-seaman.com/Wallpaper/Nature/Bugs/ThreadLeggedAssassinBug.jpg[/url]

Similar to the assassin bug in this pic, second from left on row three:

[url]http://tinyurl.com/g8lso[/url]

[color=green][size=2](edited for screensize/width - S.)[/size][/color]

Agree with Suze. I believe those are are leaffooted bug nymphs (not stinkbug nymphs, they look completely different ). The bugs are not quite in focus so I am basing that on the egg case which looks like the leaffooted bug egg case.

They are confused with the assasin bug all the time.



[url]http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=leaffooted%20bug%20eggs&btnG=Google+Search&sa=N&tab=wi[/url]

[url]http://www.pbase.com/lejun/image/46503551[/url]

thanks for the responses, everyone. it's not terribly urgent that i find out the identity of these bugs at this point. i was just curious. i haven't seen any sign of them since spraying them off with water. as far as i can tell, the bugs were limited to just the area that i photographed. will keep my fingers crossed, especially since i have other issues going on.

dexygus...actually, it is urgent that you find out. Stinkbugs ruined half of my tom's last year. I'm out there every day with my Safer's, nuking the he** out of 'em. I hate them worse than, well, I hate 'em. :lol:

Dave is right. Stinkbugs and leaffooted bugs are the bane of my existence. Once you have them ID'd to your satisfaction you would never want to let a group like that live to grow up to be productive members of the adult leaffooted society. They congregate in groups when young so I put a little plastic baggy over the whole lot and catch them all. Alot of them in a garden RUIN tomatoes--in my yard if you don't keep them in check there is never just a 'little' damage. I usually don't spray them as I know their sneaky tricks and can usually catch them. At the end of the season when I just let them go the tomatoes are a mess from their feedings.

Your picture by the way whick I think shows the LF egg casings is very cool and to see them hatch right soon after is very educational.

Maybe you can google some info to tell you exactly how to tell assassin bug nymphs from the LF nymphs.