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CalevPhoto

Photographing the Earth, one millimeter at a time…
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Aphids in the wild

During the summer, pretty much whenever I want to find aphids I can find them.  They are always on our rose bushes and I use no insecticides to get rid of them.  When I find a ladybug in the yard, I move it to the rose bushes to trim the aphids a bit – though I haven’t found a ladybug yet this year.  It is tempting to buy them in the store but I have read that these are not native ladybugs and will therefore just fly away and provide little benefit to the garden.

Still, it was a welcome sight to find some aphids in the wild this weekend while shooting near some ponds that are next to the building where I work.

This one in particular is very colorful, although I am not 100% sure it is an aphid.  It almost looks like a little lobster!  Unfortunately I could not find a good identity for it in my literature or online.  I suspect that it does not venture into our gardens very often and therefore to the vast majority of people is uninteresting.  If anyone has an idea about this one I would be very appreciative.

On future outings I think I will take a guide to Northwest plant life.  Many insects reside/feed on specific types of plants and if I know the type of plant then I may have a better idea about the type of the critter.  Of course, plant identification isn’t easy but I do have a book that covers the native plants in this area fairly well.

Just as I was packing up, I found this one on my camera bag.

This one is much more similar to the standard garden aphids.  I have heard that only the females have wings, in which case that would make this a female.

Well, according to my kids this entry is now over as they want to play a game on the computer so…

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Posted in Insects 1 year, 2 months ago at 12:45 pm.

1 comment

One Reply

  1. scienceguy288 Jun 16th 2009

    We have aphids on our roses and you can have ‘em.


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