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Some kind of True Bug?
Hi. First let me tell you how much I love your site! My two boys and I visit frequently to see what is new. Thank you for helping me identify so many of the crawlies at our house and helping to prevent some unnecessary carnage! I live in Northern Virginia and these guys just showed up and are decimating my sage plants. From your site I’m guessing that they are some sort of true bug. We have plenty of box elder bugs, assassin bugs and stink bugs here, but I have never seen this one before. They are very quick (rather roach like) and dart out of site under the leaves of the plant and they fly. They don’t seem interested in any other plants, just the sage. Thank you for any help you can provide.
Sincerely,
Helen

Hi Helen,
Just yesterday we received a request to identify this same insect, but no location was provided. We did not recognize the Four Lined Plant Bug, Poecilocapsus lineatus, and since we didn’t know where in the world the image was taken and we didn’t have the time to do the research, we did not answer the request. Since your letter included a location and we knew we could search BugGuide which is devoted to North American insects, we quickly located the Four Lined Plant Bug. According to BugGuide: “nymphs and adults feed preferentially on members of the mint family (wild mint, catnip, peppermint, spearmint, hyssop, oregano) but will attack a variety of wild plants (thistle, dandelion, burdock, tansy, loosestrife, sumac) as well as cultivated flowers (carnation, geranium, chrysanthemum, snapdragon, phlox) and crops (alfalfa, ginger, currant, raspberry, cucumber, lettuce, pea, potato, radish, squash)”

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