![]() As our stretch of unusually warm autumn weather continues, you may have a chance to observe one of these beautiful and deadly assassins prowling about on Halloween’s eve. A muscular pump in the head of the bug slurps the liquefied meal up through the beak. These enzymes liquefy the body tissues of the hapless victim. In spite of its menacing looks, the horn at. The wheel bug pumps strong digestive enzymes through the beak into the prey. The pale green caterpillar has diagonal white stripes, tiny black spots along the stripes and a larger, ringed black spot at the bottom of each stripe. Upon spying a tasty morsel, the wheel bug cautiously approaches, embraces the prey with long front legs, and then impales the victim with its powerful beak. Like other assassin bugs, the business end of the wheel bug is the powerful beak, or proboscis, stored between the beast’s front legs when it is not in use. The thorax of the nymphs soon changes from orange to black, but as nymphs grow and molt, a reddish-orange color is retained on the abdomen until full adulthood. The following spring when prey return to pester plants, the eggs hatch into gorgeous orange nymphs. In autumn the female wheel bug deposits clusters of barrel-shaped wheel bug eggs on the bark of many types of trees. To see what I mean, watch the YouTube “Wheel bug stalks caterpillar”, the most watched video in the Bug of the Week ensemble: In addition to dining on invasive pests, this generalist predator has a taste for native protein sources including several types of caterpillars. We met wheel bugs and learned of their important role as biological control agents of the brown marmorated stink bug in previous episodes of Bug of the Week. The third amigo in this triad of terror is the large assassin bug known as the wheel bug, Arilus cristatus. ![]() We normally find them in the morning laying on their backs on the hardwood floor. The bugs look like a beetle type, they are small dark brown almost black, with a white or yellow band on their backs. How it was able to sneak up and stab a highly mobile and wary leafhopper is known to the assassin bug but is a mystery to me. JanuWe have been finding these bugs in our kitchen and family room area. I watched this stealthy assassin move slowly about a goldenrod blossom with a small leafhopper skewered on its beak. Why this bug sports a costume of orange with black stripes is known only to Mother Nature and other orange assassin bugs. ![]() Another spooky denizen of goldenrods and other meadow plants is the orange assassin bug, Pselliopus barberi. In recent episodes we met blister beetles, ambush bugs, and longhorned beetles feeding and hunting prey on flower heads of goldenrod.
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