The well-camouflaged Brown Water Scorpion (Ranatra fusca [probably]) is in the Order Hemiptera, and thus can legally be called a “bug.” Hemipterans have simple/incomplete metamorphosis, looking when they hatch pretty much like they will as adults. Both immature and adult water scorpions live in the same habitats in ponds and streams.
This episode, “Homopterans on Parade,” is about four groups of small plant-juice-suckers that grace (and sometimes damage) our vegetation.
Now that spring is bursting out all over the place, the Bug Lady would like to dispense with the final, indoor “winterbugs”—the ladybug and the leaf-footed bug—both of which are among the organisms in the Bug Lady’s house that are liable to produce a bad odor when disturbed.
Water Striders skate on the water’s surface film. Water striders are carnivores. They use their second and third sets of legs to skate the surface film, and they grab their prey with their shorter front legs. They feed on small invertebrates that get caught on the surface film. They use the same “meat tenderizer” method as ambush bugs. The adults of the summer’s final brood overwinter at the bottom of the pond.
Stinkbugs include some of the worst garden pests in the insect world, and they smell bad, too. They get their name from the stink glands located on the ventral side of their bodies. Though some stinkbugs are predators, Green stink bugs drink the juice from a wide variety of leaves, flowers and fruits.
Milkweeds and goldenrods are famous for being hosts to a tremendous variety of insects and other arthropods that come to eat or be eaten. Both adult and immature insects that eat milkweed at some part of their life cycle are poisonous to their predators because of the toxic cardiac glycosides contained in milkweed sap.
Some autumns Box Elder Bugs are present in dense windrows in the grass near box elder trees. Females gather in swarms in fall, looking for warmer places to overwinter—like houses. They feed on a variety of plants, not just box elders, and can cause cosmetic damage on fruits. Eggs are hidden in crevices in the spring. Box elder bugs have simple or incomplete metamorphosis, so the young are born looking similar to the adults.