Beneficial Insects: Not All Bugs are Bad
(Page 8 of 8)
April/May 1995
By John Vivian
Mantids
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The praying mantis ( Mantis religiosa ) is a welcome European immigrant. The four-to six-inch-long female is famous for its prayerful stance and for consuming its mate while the amorous fool is still in the throes of mantid passion. It is just one of several mantids (some natives, others immigrants from China) that are all voracious predators. Unfortunately, they eat every bug they come across, including other mantids and beneficial insects. The hard-foam egg dusters are sold, or you can collect them from fields, store overwinter in a cool cellar, and put them in the garden in spring. Hundreds of young mantises will hatch but will immediately start lunching on each other. By summer's end, you are sure to have one mantis in your garden, but only one.
If you come across a mantis in the wild, by all means let it walk onto your hand and bring it home to release in the garden. It won't try to fly away if you move slowly. Mantises make good pets and actually seem to like people. Their heads swivel and they will look at you quizzically or follow a moving finger. They can't sting and won't bite even if you move your hand too fast for them—and they couldn't hurt you if they did bite. The big females will happily hunt on your houseplants over the late summer, though they should be released to breed and lay their eggs well before the leaves fall.
Spiders
One shot of broad-spectrum insecticide will rid your garden of pest insects for a while but (like my barn-smogging mistake) will also kill off some of the most effective insect predators known: the hunting spiders. Orb-web builders like high places and you might find a few webs in the corn or bean poles. A few species build ground webs and snares among low plant growth. But, the real garden helpers are the wolf spiders and jumping spiders. Looking like small crabs, most are small (a quarter- to half-inch). They come in all colors and shapes and have black, beady eyes on the top, sides, and front of their heads. They stalk bugs like tiny tigers and are fast enough to catch plant disease-spreading leafhoppers that can jump a yard straight up if disturbed by a less agile predator. The spiders are well camouflaged, but if you spot one, hunker down in the greenery, remain motionless, and watch it hunt. Like mantises, they seem unafraid of humans; and if you move slowly, you can let them crawl on your hand. I've caught small wolf spiders and (moving slowly) transferred them to a jar and then into my greenhouse where they feasted on whitefiy.
Whether you appreciate their looks or not, give mantises, spiders, and other "good" bugs a little encouragement and they'll be faithful allies in your ongoing battle against garden pests.
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