
Kathryn Wadsworth
Yesterday David and I taught an all day long Master Gardener class about insects. What fun! Insects come in so many different colors, sizes, and shapes it boggles the mind. Some insects (the good bugs) are a gardener’s friend and some (the bad bugs) are foes. Learning how to identify friend from foe really helps in successful garden management. Your friends are the beneficial insects, the predators, parasites, or pollinators. Predators and parasites eat the insects that ruin your garden and pollinators pollinate the flowers on your fruit trees and vegetables. The list below is a continuation from David’s last blog posted on Monday, January 18.
Butterflies and Moths. All of these insects belong to the order Lepidoptera, meaning scale-wing, because their wings are covered with minute, often colorful scales. Adults have four large wings and are often much appreciated for their grace and beauty. Their larvae, on the other hand, are caterpillars, cutworms, hornworms, corn earworms, tomato fruitworms, and many other very destructive pests of our food crops and ornamental plants. All lepidopterans have complete metamorphosis with larvae that are worm-like caterpillars which pupate in a chrysalis, cocoon, or in the soil. The larvae have chewing mouthparts and the adults have straw-like mouthparts for sucking up nectar.

Caterpillars come in many different colors and sizes. Some are very furry, some are quite smooth. Some are brightly colored and some match their background so perfectly they are very difficult to find.

The adult butterfly exhibits the features of both butterflies and moths. Most moths are active at night and most butterflies are active in the daytime.

Adult grasshoppers have well-developed wings.

Baby grasshoppers, or nymphs, resemble adults but their wings are undeveloped.
Thrips. Thrips are insects in the order Thysanoptera, meaning fringe wing, because their four slender wings are fringed with tiny hair-like projections. Thrips are extremely small insects, long and slender, often very hard to see with the naked eye. Thrips have incomplete metamorphosis. The nymphs resemble the adults but have no wings. They have rasping and sucking mouthparts and nymphs and adults are often found feeding together on their host plants. Thrips nymphs, like the adults, rasp away the surface tissue of plants leaving telltale patches of silvery dead cells behind. Adult thrips can fly but are not strong fliers. If you suspect a thrips infestation, hold paper under the suspect plant and tap the plant. If thrips are present they will fall onto the paper.

Aphid nymphs look much like the adult aphids except for the lack of wings.

Winged aphid adults appear late in the season to mate and lay eggs for the next generation the following year.
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