As you can see here, it seems the blister beetles have a very high fiber diet. That would be a diet of my cherry tomato leaves (I should've noted whether they seemed to only be on the Sweet Golds or Black Cherries - which are really intertwined).
These guys are about an inch long, and are very intimidating looking. They shouldn't be - they panic in a heartbeat, dropping to the ground if you wiggle the leaves they're on.
The only problem is this... I don't want any of them touching me, 'cause I don't feel like having nasty gross, and probably very painful, raised blisters forming from the chemicals they exude!
The good news is that this is the last you'll most likely be seeing of them. A day or two after I took these pics, I went out and there were ten or more having a party, all on leaves near each other, some mating, some probably looking to get lucky. (Chicka chicka bow wow!) I ran back inside, filled a stainless steel bowl with hot water, loaded it with a bunch of liquid dish detergent, carefully wriggled the bowl under party central, and started tapping the leaves.
Nothing ends a party faster than hot soapy death!!!
I've seen a few since then, but I just wiggle the leaves til I can get them out in the open on the ground, and then I step on them. :)
2 comments:
OMG - nothing will make you kick the organic label faster than these things...
I would have bought "Liquid Chernobyl" and blasted the entire yard if I had these nasty things... err, well, maybe not... while bush hogging the field yesterday I had like 5 or 6 grasshoppers and other various pre-historic looking things all over me at any given time as I went through the tall grass...
Oh we've got some mighty big grasshoppers out here - they just sit there on my tomatoes and in the basil, staring at me as I get closer and closer. And then there's the locusts, doing their "let's get it on" dances across the yard and aerial shows (they hover in the air, making chittery noises, and making sure you can see the yellow and black patterns on their wings - get's the girl locusts all wild and horny!)
Sounds like you're not a big fan of the bugs!? I think they're neat - one of my favorite parts from my Biology days!
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