They’re red, crawl, and are all over!
DEAR JOAN: There are red baby insects with black dots everywhere at the Hollister dog park, and no one knows what they are. This is the second hatching over the past six months, and they seem to originate in gopher holes.
There are hundreds of thousands of them crawling in bunches, covering the ground, making it look alive. Do you have an insect expert who can identify them? They remind me of the fireflies back East.
Marcella Pansera
Bay Area
DEAR MARCELLA: Those red and black bugs most likely are Scantius aegyptius, commonly known as red bugs. The first sighting of the insects in California was about six years ago in the southern part of the state. I haven’t seen any reports of them this far north, so you may have stumbled upon a new infestation.
I contacted Karen Overstreet, San Benito County agricultural commissioner. She says her office had not received any reports about the bug, but will investigate and your photo along with an insect sample the state Department of Food and Agriculture’s entomology lab. She’ll let us know the results.
The good news is that the red bug appears to be pretty harmless. They are not damaging valuable crops and probably will not be a pest in the home garden. They are primarily seed feeders.
There’s no denying that these bugs attract interest. When the nymphs hatch, they do so in large numbers and then migrate to areas where they can find food.
Scientists classify the Scantius aegyptius as an old world pyrrhocorid bug. The word Pyrrhocoridae means fire (pyrrho) bug (coridae), and describes their appearance rather well. The red bug is native to the Eastern Mediterranean and probably arrived in California in shipments of plant material or other items.
By the time the bugs reach adulthood, they have developed that fascinating black geometric pattern on their backs. Their bodies are red-orange, but their heads, antennae and legs are black. The nymphs are red with two black dots. They develop more of the geometric pattern with each molt.
DEAR JOAN: I put seed out for the birds and the squirrels. I enjoy watching them in the morning when I have my coffee.
The only problem is I can’t be selective in who comes to eat. We set up a camera and found rats eating at night and in the daytime.
The rats are pretty prolific — they nest in our palm tree, and hide in my husband’s workshop, the shed and the wood piles. They eat wires, boxes, you name it.
We set traps, but we don’t use poison. We do catch some of them. Do I have to stop feeding the birds and squirrels completely? If I take food away at night would that help?
Judy Keeble
Bay Area
DEAR JUDY: Bringing the food in every evening and cleaning up spilled seed will help. You may want to leave the feeders down for a couple of weeks as well.
Removing the places they nest also will help, although there’s not much you can do about the palm tree and you probably want to keep your wood pile. You can clean both of them up, however, and remove nests.
Seal up entrances to the shed and workshop.
It’s difficult to completely rid yourself of rats, but removing the food source will be a big help.