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Help identify this bug

chrisparkerzachrisparkerza Posts: 4
in Problem solving

Any help identifying these pests that seem to latch on to Duranta (Sheena's Gold) would be appreciated. They are killing off all my plants...nothing I've sprayed seems to stop them

http://i68.tinypic.com/rrtqxk.png

Last edited: 25 February 2018 10:34:22

Posts

  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090

    No idea but try not spraying anymore as this will also kill off any predators and other beneficial pollinators..   

    Try instead to blast them off with a pressure squirt form a hosepipe or squish them with your fingers and maybe apply some garlic spray to deter them while someone who knows pests comes up with an identification.

    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • chrisparkerzachrisparkerza Posts: 4
    Obelixx says:

    No idea but try not spraying anymore as this will also kill off any predators and other beneficial pollinators..   

    Try instead to blast them off with a pressure squirt form a hosepipe or squish them with your fingers and maybe apply some garlic spray to deter them while someone who knows pests comes up with an identification.

    See original post

     Thanks for the advice...tried all that already I'm afraid. They have some symbiotic relationship with ants too...so weird. 

  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340

    The only things I've seen in the UK that look like that are woolly aphids and scale insects.
    But as said above you first need to identify what they are before spraying random insecticides on them, you're probably not doing the plants or predators any good with that method.

    Good luck


    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • Alan Clark2 in LiverpoolAlan Clark2 in Liverpool Posts: 2,190

    As you are in Africa and this is a British site you will be lucky if anyone can identify it. Whatever it is, it presumably excretes excess sugar which the ants are feeding on, as they do with aphids.

  • chrisparkerzachrisparkerza Posts: 4
    Alan Clark2 says:

    As you are in Africa and this is a British site you will be lucky if anyone can identify it. Whatever it is, it presumably excretes excess sugar which the ants are feeding on, as they do with aphids.

    See original post

     Yeah, casting the net wide at this point as nobody here can identify them either. The excrete a black sap that the ants eat. When the bugs, presumably some aphid, fall off, the ants carry them back up...fascinating as it is, they are colonising the whole garden...

  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,384

    Looks like the 'cottony cushion scale insect':

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icerya_purchasi

    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • chrisparkerzachrisparkerza Posts: 4

    After a day of googling, it's been identified. 

    https://www.sanbi.org/creature/lantana-bug

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