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PraticalGardener
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Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2018 1:02 pm
Location: Potomac Highlands region, West Virginia, USA (Zone 6a?)

Promoting Assassin Bug, what plants for habitat?

What plants can I grow to promote or encourage a good habitat for the helpful Assassin Bug? :| I think I accidently starved the poor things the other summer by being too aggressive with hand-picking off Colorado Potato beetles and larvae by hand early in the season last year. I'm not really certain why they went from a fine population one year to 'extinct' in this garden. Mebe they were buried under too much 'mulch' or didn't fare well in the particularly wet spring that year?

Do I need to buy more, or can I simply hope they will come on their own? :? I have no idea if they were originally intentionally introduced into this garden or not, but they were thriving for years before I started noticing and paying attention to them.

What can I plant to encourage a good habitat for assassin bugs? When they were a thriving population before, I know my folks and I had rows of potatoes, with a healthy population of annoying Colorado Potato Beetles (their food source) we were attempting to maintain by hand-picking them off into a jar of soapy water.

Unfortunately I only recognize the Assassin bugs in their (younger?) age. They have a bright red back end that 'points upwards for the sky', but were otherwise black in color. Their posture reminds me of the legs of a praying mantis. I first learned they were a 'good' bug when I caught one in the act of holding it's meal of a plump Colorado Potato Beetle larvae and it was preparing to 'eat' it.

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applestar
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Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Wow this is an interesting question. I don’t know the answer but I would speculate that if used to have a good population of them, and you still have the food they need, what you may have accidentally eliminated is where they lay eggs and overwinter?

I would start from there.

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!potatoes!
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Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:13 pm
Location: wnc - zones 6/7 line

can you find and post a picture of the bug you’re referring to? or find out it’s latin name? there are several true bugs whose common name is ‘assassin bug’ - not all closely related. the first one that comes to mind is well camouflaged on blooming goldenrod (all yellow and green, no red), so that’s probably not the one you’re after. my guess is that you’re talking about something more akin to a wheel bug....but more info would help!

told2b
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Joined: Thu Nov 06, 2014 4:07 pm
Location: North Jersey, Zone 6

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Arilus cristatus

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!potatoes!
Greener Thumb
Posts: 1938
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:13 pm
Location: wnc - zones 6/7 line

oh, it is a wheel bug. the adults are recognizable by the studded wheel that sticks up from their thorax. plants to attract them include umbellifers - think queen anne’s lace, fennel, dill. I see alfalfa and daisies listed, too. flowering natives for your area should help, too. milkweeds (common or butterfly weed), buckwheats...

apparently there are places where you can order them online as well.



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