True Bugs

Assassin bugs are true bugs. The genus Zelus is a small one (about 60 species) that is more common south of the border. Only about a half-dozen species reside in the U.S., and they mostly live in the south and southwest. They are describe them as “slender, lanky assassins, occurring on foliage” (the assassins that frequent flowers are hard on honeybee populations).

Milkweed Bugs are in the Seed Bug bunch (family Lygaedidae), which get their name because they suck juice from seeds. MBs of one kind or another are found on milkweeds across the U.S. and southern Canada, and they are most common in the Southeast. Unlike most insects, MBs are reported to feed on some nectar, and when food is scarce, MBs may eat other milkweed parts and live or dead invertebrates.

Box Elder Bugs, as you would expect, feed on/suck sap from the tender parts of box elder trees, especially from the seed pods (some municipalities ban female box elders for this reason). They have been observed eating other maples, ash, and a few species of fruit trees, plus grapes and strawberries, and their feeding may scar fruits. They can fly several city blocks, or up to a few miles looking for food.

“Snake spit,” “Cuckoo Spit,” and “Frog spit” are names for these bubbly masses of foam that are seen on grasses, wildflowers, and even in trees. They are manufactured by the nymph (immature form) of a critter called a froghopper or Spittlebug, a bug whose immature stage is better known than its adult. Spittlebugs overwinter as eggs and hatch in spring.

Ambush bugs wear the name “bug” proudly and legitimately, which means that their forewings have two different textures—the proximal half (closest to the body) is leathery, and the distal half (away from the body) is membranous, like a fly’s wing. They have a “beak” for sucking, and this beak is tucked in under its “chin.” What they do well is predation, and to that end, ambush bugs are equipped with a few adaptations that allow them to prey on insects much, much larger than they are:

Backswimmers are piercer-predators that kill and suck the bodily fluids out of any prey they can subdue—invertebrate and vertebrate—including tiny fish fry and tadpoles. In their choice of food, they compete with small fish. Water Boatmen swim head down along the bottom in search of food. Lacking the standard piercing beak issued to other aquatic true bugs, they ingest living material—diatoms, algae, protozoa, and nematodes.

Giant Water Bugs are true bugs. They are large, brownish, flat, roughly oval insects with impressive front legs. GWBs are “climber-swimmers” that live in quiet, shallow waters with plenty of vegetation. Like most other aquatic true bugs are classified as “piercer-predators.” They grab their prey, stab it with a short, sharp beak, and inject poisonous enzymes (produced in salivary glands near the beak) that immobilize it and then liquefy its innards

The adult Masked Hunter is a striking, shiny, black bug about 3/4” long. The immature (nymph) has a sticky “finish” that attracts lint and dust; in short, stuff sticks to Junior, earning it the nickname “dustbug.” MHs are insect-feeders, untiring consumers of bedbugs, a pest that is staging a comeback in big cities everywhere thanks to the ease of world travel. If you have the predator, perhaps you should check for the prey.