Assasin bug, a young one. I saw one eating a CPB larva yesterday morn. Then this morn, I fed him another.

I had a large crop of those last year, seem to have plenty this year also.

This is a great beneficial insect and will help keep pest insects under control.

That's a relief, because there are a bunch.
I have refrained from smashing until I knew for sure. So far, the only trouble I have are 3 tomatoes with curly leaves, several rabbits, and those %$^#%^ gophers. Oh, and wierd eggs that turn out to be leaf miners.....they are no more...bwahahahah

We had a bunch of the gray assassin bugs last year, but this year I've only seen these black and red ones. I tried to figure out just what kind they are and the closest I could find was the bee assassin bug. They are on the sunflowers right now, and haven't seen them around the bee and butterfly flowers so I'm leaving them... I'm hoping they will put a dent in the grasshopper population.

Taraleigh

I've got them all over the potatoes right now. The one thing I don't like about assassin bugs is that they will eat beneficial insects, but I leave them out there anyway. It is a dog-eat-dog (or, more accurately, a bug-eat-bug) world in the garden and I try not to interfere in the population of the beneficial insects. I figure the populations of all the beneficial insects manage to coexist alright so they can do their jobs. If I was a beekeeper, I'd likely remove the ones that eat bees.

In our garden right now we also have the gray assassin bugs, tons of lady bugs and also wheel bugs. Our population of beneficial insects is really high this year, so clearly we have had enough of a population of pest insects to attract them. Other than grasshopper damage, and some spider mite damage, I don't see a lot of damage to plants though, so the beneficial insects are doing their job pretty well.

Last week I found a group of Leaf-footed bugs together on one potato plant. Since they are so damaging to tomatoes (inflicting similar damage to that done by stink bugs), I sprayed them with Take Down Spray and watched them fall off the plants and, presumably, die. Haven't seen any in the garden since.

I have seen an occasional stink bug but not nearly as many as usual, so either the beneficial insects are killing them for me, or they may be leaving the garden alone to focus on the little forest grove of sunflowers just outside the garden fence. It is about 15' long and 4-6' wide and the stink bugs flock to them. I use these sunflowers as a diversion crop to lure stink bugs out of the garden.

Sorry guys, I KILL the suckers cuz they eat my butterfly caterpillars. Can't have that, ya know!

Susan

Oh No!!! So far, they are not in the butterfly area (parsley, dill, carrots, butterfly weed that FINALLY came up), but I will keep an eye out.
Thanks for the warning. Just saw our first swallowtail today, and I have been sending out invitations for a month