Black insects on green bean plants
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
May 7, 2012 7:45 pm
Hello! I’m wondering if you could tell me what these little black beetle-like insects are that are sucking the juices from my bean leaves.
Thanks!
Signature: Just Dave
Hi Dave,
Our first impression was that you might have Flea Beetles, but the antennae are wrong for a beetle. After a bit of searching through the True Bugs, insects with piercing and sucking mouthparts, we found the Garden Fleahopper, Halticus bractatus, by browsing through BugGuide where it is described as: “Minute, black; antennomere 1 and often the middle of the second and the base of the third pale; patches of silvery scale-like hairs on the front wing. Sexes strongly dimorphic, females having the wings entirely thickened and ovoid so that they resemble small flea beetles, while the males have long normally constructed wings.” Garden Fleahoppers are classified as Plant Bugs in the family Miridae.
