Well, I have something to admit. I have been seriously disrupting the sex lives of the leaf footed stink bugs that have been visiting my tomato plants. And by disrupting I mean knocking the sex crazed pair into a bucket and then stomping on them until they are ex-stink bugs.
So far I have dispatched three 'couples' and a single female looking for a hookup. Usually I feel a sense of remorse when I have to end the life of anything, including weeds as well as garden pests. With these guys I get so weirded out about the whole 'bugs that stink' aspect of the thing that I am dancing around like a wimp and making furtive sissy girl slaps. Apparently getting weirded out kills the whole remorse thing for me in this case.
So far no baby bugs but I am keeping my eyes peeled for their eventual entrance onto the scene.
Now here is something that I think is interesting and want to expound upon. We have these milkweed assassin bugs all over our garden. They are great at taking care of a number of insect pests and I am always overjoyed to see them in my garden.
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| Milkweed Assassin bug |
This year we had them in droves except I never see them on the tomato plants. I see them on plants in the same bed as the tomato plants, but never on the tomatoes themselves. I have considered transporting a few of the adult assassin bugs onto the tomato plants in the hopes of getting them to attack the baby stinkbugs. However, I don't think that will be successful due to the following reason.
This is what an assassin bug nymph looks like:
This is what a leaf footed stink bug nymph looks like:
See the resemblance? They both have red bodies and black legs. I think the assassin bugs ignore these baby stink bugs because they look too much like their own kids. Of course that would only explain why they don't go after the stink bug nymphs, not why they seem to avoid the tomatoes entirely. It also may be that assassin bugs eat their own nymphs like candy. I don't know.
As soon as I see any stink bug nymphs I am going to try my experiment and see if the assassin bug will take care of the problem for me. I will let you know how it turns out.
I hate having to tell these apart. I can confirm, however, that Assassin bugs are more than happy to eat each other, their kids or not.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I had a suspicion that the Assassin bugs were not that picky. I never did see any adult Assassin bugs on my tomato plants. They were on the plants adjacent to the tomatoes in the same beds, but never on the tomato plants themselves. I thought it might be because of the 'rough' texture of the tomato vines, but I see them on the okra plants all the time.
DeleteSince it is quite difficult to tell the baby bugs apart I have just decided that any red bug on the tomato plant is an enemy and treat them as such.