help!! bedbugs? body lice? help please!!
Location: southern Maryland
August 5, 2011 5:29 pm
Please help, my husband’s niece house sit for us & the next day after being home we found all these little bugs on top of the bed. We thought they were baby dog ticks round & black grey in color. We vacuumed them up & stripped the bed. The next day we came home to them on the bed again & I went into overdrive cleaning, even encased our bed. I have bites on my, neck, shoulders & around hairline. My husband & daughter have no signs….I. have checked our heads for lice & nothing!! I am losing my mind over this & getting tired of our nightly ritual of bed cleaning. We live in southern Maryland. I am also submitting a pic of a black bug we have seen a lot of, that bug is upside down in the pic….thank you!!
Signature: desperately need help
Thing found on the bed
Dear desperately need help,
We cannot make out any details in the thing you found on the bed. Did they move? Are you certain they were living things? We sometimes get reports of Tropical Fowl Mites or Tropical Rat Mites entering homes and biting the occupants, but this generally happens if there was a bird nest on the roof or a rat’s nest the attic, and the occupants “flew the coop”, leaving nothing else for the Mites to feed upon. Again, we cannot make out any details in your photo to be certain. Here is a link to Biting Mites in the home from CityBugs website. The second creature is a Grain Weevil, and it may be infesting stored grain products in the pantry or pet foods including bird seed. You will need to find the source of the infestation to eliminate that problem. Just discard the infested food products. Here is a recent posting on Grain Weevils.
Grain Weevil
help!!! bedbugs? body lice? please help
Location: southern maryland
August 6, 2011 1:33 am
Thank you for responding so quickly! The weivels are an easy fix. The bugs found on bed were alive. At first glance it looked like dirt & then I did think were dead….but they moved very slowly. Sort of just pulling themselves along with their very tiny (many) legs. I took a couple of more pics, hope they help. Also the one in the pic seems to be dried up kind of shriveled…probably from one the many products I used. However my itching has not subsided. Thank you again!
Signature: desperately need help
Unidentified Bed Thing is probably Tick Larva
Hi again desperately need help,
We are sorry, but we cannot tell what this is. It might be a Mite. Perhaps one of our readers will be able to provide some information.
1
Insect identification
Location: Highlands, near Victoria B.C.
August 4, 2011 11:25 pm
These tiny flying bugs were all over the pearly everlasting flowers. What are they? Can you tell me about their life cycle? Thank you!
Signature: Pattie
Tumbling Flower Beetle
Hi Pattie,
This sure looks to us like a Tumbling Flower Beetle in the family Mordellidae, based on photos posted to BugGuide which states they are: “Common on flowers and foliage; sometimes on dead trees and logs. Larvae occur in dead or dying hardwoods, in pith of weeds or in bracket fungi.” BugGuide also remarks that they are: “small, wedge-shaped beetles; body arched, head bent downward; abdomen usually prolonged into a style or pointed process; hind legs in most species very long and stout, fitted for leaping; antennae long and slender; thorax as wide at base as the elytra. The body is densely covered with fine silky hairs, usually black, but often very prettily spotted or banded with yellow or silvery hues. The adults occur on flowers or on dead trees and are very active, flying and running with great rapidity and in the net or beating umbrella jumping and tumbling about in grotesque manner in their efforts to escape. The larvae live in old wood or in the pith of plants, and those of some species are said to be carnivorous in habit, feeding upon the young of Lepidoptera and Diptera which they find in the plant stems.”
beetle
Location: A table (on Long Island, NY)
August 5, 2011 10:50 am
Hi,
im on long island and found this grapevine beetle in my back yard. I actually did not know what it was at first until i found this website and compared pictures haha. My question is, is this a rare bug to find in this area?
Signature: Dookey
Grapevine Beetle
Hi Dookey,
The Grapevine Beetle is not rare, and though we cannot provide any concrete data, we can say that the identification requests we received this year are up from previous years. Since there are vineyards in New York, it stands to reason that Grapevine Beetles might be more common there than in other places.
Japanese beetle eater
Location: Wakefield, RI near Providence, RI
August 2, 2011 5:45 pm
This large bug (over 1”) was seen sitting in our vegetable garden. It snatched a Japanese beetle from the air as it flew by, sucked the juice out of it, and then grabbed another! Awesome!!
What is it and how can we get more?
Signature: Ann in RI
Robber Fly eats Japanese Beetle
Hi Ann,
There is not enough detail in your photo to determine a genus or species, but this adept predator is a Robber Fly, probably in the genera Laphria or Mallophora. We just posted a higher quality image of a similar Robber Fly eating a Bee, and there was not enough detail to determine an identity, but you may read our rationale here. What we especially love about your letter is the fact that the prey is the invasive exotic Japanese Beetle, the scourge of many a gardener.
Thanks so much for your quick reply and helpful information, Daniel. We’ll try to get a better photo and maybe we can key it out ourselves!
Your website is really fun and informative.
Thanks again,
Ann in RI
Prionus pocularis ?
Location: Westside of Okanagan Lake near Kelowna BC
August 2, 2011 2:19 pm
Just wondering if this may be the Prionus pocularis
Signature: oklakebc
California Root Borer
Dear oklakebc,
Prionus pocularis is a species found in eastern North America. In our opinion, this is Prionus californicus, the California Root Borer, which ranges from Mexico to Canada in the western states.
California Root Borer
What’s This Bug?
August 2, 2011 7:58 AM
this is a beetle in a pine forest in missoula, montana.
thank you!
c.
Green Click Beetle
Hi Clare,
We are relatively confident that we have identified your Click Beetle as a Green Click Beetle, Nitidolimonius resplendens, based on images posted to BugGuide, which lists the habitat as: “variously-aged coniferous, deciduous, and mixed forests; on poplar (Populus), willow (Salix), or on shrubs; adults often found on the spring growth of conifers along margins of wetlands and drainages.” The only sightings reported from BugGuide are in Alaska, Alberta Canada and New Hampshire.
Mysterious Bug
Location: California
August 2, 2011 12:27 am
Hey guys, I was recently out walking in my backyard and I found this bug squirming on its back. It was an interesting looking one and so I thought I would post it here and see what you guys have to say about it. Every time I flipped it over, however, it would flip itself back onto its back and squirm there. I found another one that was running every which way searching for something. Then, I found another that was lying on its stomach flailing its limbs. After I did some digging, I found out that my neighbor recently sprayed his yard with poison, and apparently these things were caught in the cross-fire. How unfortunate, they are really something special with their size.
Signature: Josh
Palo Verde Root Borer
Dear Josh,
We are taking tremendous creative license with tagging your letter, because generally the person who submits the email is the person implicated in our tags. In this case, we are charging your neighbor with unnecessary carnage, but not necessarily for just the Palo Verde Root Borer, Derobrachus hovorei, that you photographed. We don’t know what was targeted by your neighbor, and perhaps he has a cherished Palo Verde tree that was compromised by a larger than usual population of Palo Verde Root Borers. Adult Palo Verde Root Borers are not the damage producing phase of the insect. The larvae are the borer and insecticide will most likely not penetrate to the root of the problem. Sadly, insecticides are indiscriminate in the lives they take, and beneficial as well as injurious creatures may succumb. Birds and Lizards might also become collateral damage by exposure to strong doses of toxins administered by an amateur. You may read more about the Palo Verde Root Borer on BugGuide.
Palo Verde Root Borer
4
Variegated June Beetle?
Location: Blue Ridge, GA
July 31, 2011 8:56 pm
There were many of these around the cabin where we were vacationing in Blue Ridge, GA. They made a hissing noise like an air compressor!
Signature: Dawn Jones
Variegated June Beetle
Hi Dawn,
You are correct. This is a Variegated June Beetle, one of the Lined June Beetles. The hissing sound is produced by rubbing together external body parts and it is called stridulation.
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