Meet My Friend

I was ripping out the cucumbers the other day and found quite a few surprises. One of them being this strangely colored Praying Mantis! I put him in the bug house until I was done and then relocated him to the pepper and bean bed. It needs help. But I bet he was after these little buggers below! Pretty sure these are Leaf-Footed Bug nymphs. After looking at a lot of different bugs, what led me to believe that this is what they are is 1)they tend to hang together! I found them all hanging on two lemon cucumbers, one with a hole in it that almost made it look like their little house!

And 2)the presence of adults in the garden. But I did research before I squished the little buggers. By the time I went back out to get them, they were once again all over the two lemon cucumbers. Every one of them….which made it easy to get them!

    

I sure was hoping these were good guys, like an Assassin nymph or something, but no. I am fairly positive after my reading that they are not. Such fun with bugs in the garden this time of year! My daughter surprisingly really liked the praying mantis. She wanted to go find it again today, but I can’t seem to find him in our little jungle of a garden. But I’m sure he is there! There is plenty for him to eat! I just hope he doesn’t eat the frogs! I need them too, but they aren’t much bigger than the squash bugs right now! Cute little buggers!

Now, off to research another new one I have been seeing. It looks like a white, or albino squash or stink bug! Weird!