Know your Garden insects
In the past six months, I had the privilege of working with a few community gardens and during this period, I came across various insect species that caught my eye.
Since Gardening is my passion, I started recording insect information to gain more knowledge about them.
It’s especially vital for a gardener to be able to identify the “good” from the “bad” ones in order to have a good harvest.
Here are some photos and a short description of the insects I came across. Enjoy!
Note: Please let me know if I have made any errors in identification.
a) Harlequin Bug
These beautiful insects are known as Harlequin bugs. They suck the sap out of your cabbage plants!
Plants commonly attacked by the harlequin bug include cabbage, cauliflower, collards, Brussels sprouts, turnip, and radish.
b) Squash Bug
Oh, how I hate this little guy!
This sneaky insect is called the Squash bug. As the name suggests, it mainly attacks squash plants (I mean, in some cases, devours it, as you can see from the photo!).
c) Acanthocephala
I found this guy walking around a lush reserve (not a garden).
These are also called spine-headed worms and use their spines to pierce and hold the gut wall of their hosts. But, they are rarely known to affect humans.
d) Tiger Crane fly
When I first saw this insect, I mistook it to be a giant mosquito and freaked out! But, that’s a common misconception.
The Tiger crane fly belongs to the insect family Tipulidae and feeds on nectar and pollen from flowers.
e) Ladies and Related Admirals
I had a chuckle after hearing the name of this beautiful butterfly. It has near-global distribution and includes a lot of sub-species.
f) Ladybugs
These little fellas are a gardener’s best friend.
The ladybug helps keep the aphid population in check. Aphids are small sap-sucking insects that usually attack young plants and are known to cause crop destruction.
g) Wolf spiders
I saw this young guy either stuck with a piece of thermoform or was carrying it. Not really sure.
Wolf spiders are excellent hunters with keen eyesight. Although they spit venom when provoked, they are not found to be dangerous to humans in most cases.
h) Neocapsus
I found this beautiful insect on one of my Marigold plants. Neocapsus cuneatus is a species of plant bug in the family Miridae.
i) Queen
I am not really sure if the “Queen” butterfly is similar to the “Ladies and Related Admirals” that I mentioned in (e), but the Queen butterfly can be found in meadows, fields, marshes, deserts, and at the edges of forests.
I found this one during a trip to an underground cave in Texas. This beautiful insect was flying around a bush near the cave.
What insects have you seen around? Please share!
Identification tool: App Seek by iNaturalist
Special thanks to JM Heatherly for giving me the idea to write “short description” articles.
Check out my YouTube channel for inspiring videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBfUxVSxC0koxGSkwzVRYzQ
