What Bugs Did You See in Your Garden Today?

[boggart]

Honeybee on male pumpkin blossom from this morning.

I had no idea pumpkin flowers were so beautiful!

 

[DuckDuckGooseMum]

I’m always on the lookout for curious little insects while I’m tending my flower garden or raised beds. I love seeing bugs I’ve never seen before, and I love searching online in an effort to identify them.
I’d love to see your insect finds as well!

Here are a few that I’ve seen in the last week or so:

A beautiful Green Lynx spider having supper on a closed flower bloom
View attachment 1867188

A very large Katydid!
View attachment 1867184

A tiny metallic gold and silver spider that I haven’t been able to identify
View attachment 1867186

And the dreaded Asian Tiger mosquito, who I have a love/hate relationship with
View attachment 1867185

Also has anyone else noticed a significant lack of Junebugs this year? I can count the amount I’ve seen this summer on two hands.

Hi! Oh my goodness I have had a million June bugs this year!
I have 3 Rose of Sharon trees in the yard and they like to gather on the leaves and within the blooms. The honey bees have been extremely thick on these trees as well. They are sometimes so covered with pollen from the blooms that they can barely move! I've seen several of them that seem completely intoxicated by the pollen and just stay there in the bloom...covered with pollen and seemingly comatose! Many others fall to the ground unable to fly under the weight of their precious cargo! The June bugs buzz all around the flowers mating. Not unusual to see 6+ stacked up on or in one flower. They often fall to the ground and my ducks feast on them. I have also noticed them on my BlackBerry vine leaves.

 

[DuckDuckGooseMum]

Just went out to check on my injured chick and there was a stinkbug & then a tiny one! We always seem to have an abundance of those here in Virginia. I did find a couple of Mantis as well. I can honestly say that I would prefer to find pretty much anything but those! The Mantis absolutely scares me to death! They're unbelievably creepy to me!
There is never a shortage of spiders, but thankfully less Black Widows spotted this year and fewer Wolf spiders as well. The ducks may have had something to do with that!
I found something really interesting stuck to a roll of chicken wire last week...a mud dauber's nest with a large larva in it and inside the mud was a small cavern full of miniature spiders. Not sure if the mud dauber was meant to eat them or vice versa! We have seen a number of caterpillars and also spotted some of the most beautiful & unusual Moths I've ever seen! I'm posting a picture of one that was in my yard in May, which is highly unusual. I was told that it should have been in Canada at that time! In June I spotted an equally beautiful brown one, but didn't get a photo in time! Threw in a pic of another oddity! A really strange looking insect in the ground, but don't know what it is!

 

[sealer39]

The moth is a Luna Moth

 

[boggart]

Hi! Oh my goodness I have had a million June bugs this year!
I have 3 Rose of Sharon trees in the yard and they like to gather on the leaves and within the blooms. The honey bees have been extremely thick on these trees as well. They are sometimes so covered with pollen from the blooms that they can barely move! I've seen several of them that seem completely intoxicated by the pollen and just stay there in the bloom...covered with pollen and seemingly comatose! Many others fall to the ground unable to fly under the weight of their precious cargo! The June bugs buzz all around the flowers mating. Not unusual to see 6+ stacked up on or in one flower. They often fall to the ground and my ducks feast on them. I have also noticed them on my BlackBerry vine leaves.

It sounds like your garden has a wonderful little ecosystem of its own going on! I would love to have so many beneficial insects, for both my plants and my poultry.

Just went out to check on my injured chick and there was a stinkbug & then a tiny one! We always seem to have an abundance of those here in Virginia. I did find a couple of Mantis as well. I can honestly say that I would prefer to find pretty much anything but those! The Mantis absolutely scares me to death! They're unbelievably creepy to me!
There is never a shortage of spiders, but thankfully less Black Widows spotted this year and fewer Wolf spiders as well. The ducks may have had something to do with that!
I found something really interesting stuck to a roll of chicken wire last week...a mud dauber's nest with a large larva in it and inside the mud was a small cavern full of miniature spiders. Not sure if the mud dauber was meant to eat them or vice versa! We have seen a number of caterpillars and also spotted some of the most beautiful & unusual Moths I've ever seen! I'm posting a picture of one that was in my yard in May, which is highly unusual. I was told that it should have been in Canada at that time! In June I spotted an equally beautiful brown one, but didn't get a photo in time! Threw in a pic of another oddity! A really strange looking insect in the ground, but don't know what it is!

I’ve only seen one black widow this year but I’ve seen MANY fiddlebacks. The only to spiders I kill on sight. When I take down mud dauber nests I use my hands, so I absolutely would have died if a thousand baby spiders came crawling up my arm Lovely bug finds as well. How is your injured chick doing?

I found this Sphinx moth(?) pupa and a millipede that I need to identify while putting hardware cloth up around my chicken run. I love millipedes, but absolutely can’t stand centipedes!

 

[boggart]

While pruning hibiscus for some homemade lemonade I came across this mantis. It failed to catch lunch, perhaps I gave it performance anxiety by turning on my camera

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Not in my garden, but at the little lake where I take my kidlet to fish. My understanding is that the yellow one is the male and the dark one is a female.

 

[DellaMyDarling]

Ok, fun thread.

Corn spider! Also known as a zig zag spider like page one.
I read they eat those rotten Japanese beetles, so I let her stay where she's at.



Annnnddddd!
I have over a dozen monarch pillars on my milkweed.
Failed to plant it yet, it's in a deck pot. Awesome to sit next to them and watch.

 

[sealer39]

Wasn’t in my garden but here is a black widow.

This is a male. The females are jet black and three times as big.

And then there is this guy. I’ve always called them jumping spiders and just recently found out that they eat other spiders.

 

[Fluffy&Cutie]

Hello love bugs, lol. Just needing to blow off some steam. I JUST planted 8 heirloom sweet pepper plants in my pepper garden. Ok, it was 3 days ago. They were healthy sprouts. The first day the sprouts looked happy and thriving, but I only counted 7. Hmmmm. Did I plant 7 or 8? The next day I counted 6 sprouts. ??? TODAY THERE IS ONLY 1 LEFT. The stems are there, but no leaves. Come on! What ate my plant? Is it an animal or a bug. That was a lot of work for nothing.
Oh well, another challenge for a new gardner. Advice welcomed. Happy day to all!