Who’s in my garden?
Can you identify common garden insects?
When you see an insect flitting through your garden, do you wonder what its name is? Insects are classified into 30 different Orders based upon common characteristics. Butterflies and moths belong to the Order Lipidoptera, beetles belong to Coleoptera, and dragonflies belong to Odonata.
Unless you are an entomologist or are collecting insects for a 4-H entomology project, you don’t have to worry about which order insects belong to. However, you might want to learn the common names of insects found in your garden.
While a member of 4-H as a child, I took entomology as one of my many projects. I spent countless hours outdoors, net in hand, catching insects to mount for my collection. Each collected insect had two tiny, rectangular papers attached to its pin listing its common and scientific name, where it was caught, and the date. It was always thrilling to find a new insect not already in my collection to catch, mount, and research in order to discover its name and Order.
Stacy Bealmear-Jones, a former University of Arizona extension agent
in Yuma who is now a specialized agent with North Carolina Cooperative Extension and North Carolina State University, shares my interest in insects.
“I’ve loved insects since I was a child. They are so fascinating. I loved to collect them in jars and watch them. When I went to college and started working in an entomology lab, my love for insects grew,” Jones said. “After learning details of their lives and how much they help us, there was no other field I wanted to study. I firmly believe I’m a scientist today because of those early experiences collecting insects and also having supportive parents who allowed me to follow my passion. They saw my interest in science and nurtured it.”
Insects make up more than half the 1.7 million named species of living organisms, with many insect species yet to be discovered. As large as their numbers are, it is fairly easy to learn the names of the most common insects found in your garden. There are many good reference books and online information containing photos and information to help you identify your garden’s visitors.
Some of the most interesting insects found in your garden belong to the Order Diptera, which includes all species of flies. These insects zip through your garden, rarely stopping long enough to have their picture taken. The house fly, robber fly, and mosquito belong to Diptera and have complete metamorphosis – a life cycle that includes an egg, larva, pupa and adult.
House flies are probably the most irritating members of the Diptera group, although mosquitoes are a close second. Uninvited, flies seem to attend every picnic or barbeque. They are scavengers who feed on anything edible. Their squirmy, white larvae, called maggots, play an important role in breaking down unsavory items found in our city dumps. Maggots also feed on dead animals. Because flies travel from unclean locations directly to our food, they can easily spread germs.
The robber fly looks menacing because of its sharp, beak-like mouth, but it doesn’t sting. Being a predator, its mouth is used to kill and eat other insects, such as wasps, grasshoppers and dragonflies. Large, compound eyes give the robber fly a wide view of its hunting territory and allow it to swoop down on unsuspecting insects and gobble them up. Its long, thin abdomen resembles a wasp rather than a fly. It is considered a beneficial insect since it feeds upon insects that are garden pests.
Mosquitoes are true flies and have a deservedly bad reputation. Both male and female mosquitoes feed on plants. Females also feed on blood in order to produce eggs and are known to transmit diseases, such as malaria, yellow fever, Zika, and West Nile Virus. Their eggs are deposited in water and turn into wiggling larvae that transform into adult mosquitoes. Even though we live in the desert, there are plenty of mosquitoes breeding in our canals, the Colorado River, and any standing water around our homes.
Another interesting order of insects is Hemiptera. This order has incomplete metamorphosis – a life cycle that includes an egg, several stages of larvae (nymphs), and an adult. Nearly all insects in this order are herbivores that feed on plants. Familiar insects in this group are aphids, cochineal scale, desert cicada, and milkweed bug.
Aphids are bothersome, especially when feasting on our plants. Every year these tiny, greenish-yellow insects visit our garden to suck nutrients from our plants’ leaves and stems. As they feed, they leave behind a sticky substance called honeydew that attracts ants and other insects. A strong spray of water or a contact insecticide will help discourage these pesky insects. Use of a systemic fertilizer also keeps these bothersome insects away from prized plants.
Aphid females lay eggs toward the end of fall. When the eggs hatch in spring, emerging adults are all females called “stem mothers” that lay eggs without mating. Their eggs also hatch into females. As summer ends, males are produced, mating occurs, and eggs are laid to overwinter on plants until spring arrives.
Have you noticed the lovely purple-colored Santa Rita prickly pear cacti growing around Yuma with ugly, white splotches on their pads? These white splotches are a protective coating that hides cochineal scale females underneath. These insects secrete a white, waxy coating around their bodies to protect them while they feed on the cacti. Their bodies fill with a red liquid which historically has been used for centuries as a dye in Mexico and South America. Getting rid of cochineal scale isn’t easy, and these insects eventually kill the prickly pear.
Desert cicada is another interesting member of Hemiptera. After living underground for seventeen years as a larva that feeds on plants’ roots, the larva finally emerges and climbs up a tree trunk where it breaks free from its exoskeleton and emerges as an adult cicada. Its empty brown exoskeleton remains clinging to the tree long after the adult cicada has flown away.
Males emit a loud buzzing sound to attract females. Their buzzing is a summer serenade when we are outdoors in the evening. Adult cicadas pierce tree branches to suck nutrients for food. They actually sweat like we do and are the only insects known to sweat. Their sweat helps them remain cool during our long, hot summers when they are active.
The longer you have a garden, the more insects you will come to know and identify. Continually discovering something new and interesting in your garden is one of the reasons gardening is never boring.
Happy gardening.