Nature as a Quilt: Stealthy Assassin Bugs

Hmmm, they may be in your garden without your notice and that is a good thing.

Assassin Bugs are common in nature, and sometimes in your garden, and are very effective at what they are created to do. There are nearly 200 species of these predatory insects in North America and 20 to 30 species in Canada. They are not generally aggressive toward humans but their venomous bites can be quite painful if you happen to run afoul of one.

What is so special about Assassin Bugs?

Assassin Bugs are skilled hunters often employing stealth and ambush tactics to capture the insects upon which they prey. They can sit deathly still on a flower or plant waiting in ambush. Their front legs contain a glue-like substance that traps and holds prey. They then use a beak-like projection on their head to insert a venom that paralyzes the insect they have caught.

What do Assassin Bugs look like?

Assassin Bugs come in a number of different forms from tiny wedge shapes (Ambush Bugs), to oval and elongated (like the one at the head of this post) or stick-like (like the Thread-legged Bug above). They range in size from a ½ inch to 1-1/2” inches and comes in variety of colours including gray, black, brown or even yellow or orange.

How long do they live and where?

Like many insects, Assassin Bugs live only one season in this part of the world which equates to six to ten months. They are commonly found in trees, gardens and grassy areas although you have to tune your eyes to notice them. I often find Ambush Bugs perched on flowers that match their colour.

Where do they fit in the quilt of nature?

Assassin Bugs play an important role in ecosystems as natural population control agents for the insect species they prey upon. Their prey species includes aphids, leafhoppers, caterpillars and leaf beetles which feed on plants. In turn, they are a food source for birds, frogs, snakes and other small mammals.

Assassin Bugs – one more, fascinating patch in the quilt of nature stitched together by threads of interdependence and natural balance.

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.