VERY small white furry insect with clear wings (wooly aphid)

by Lauren
(Saddle Brook, NJ)

VERY small white furry insect with clear wings and beady eyes flying around outside...almost looks like pollen

White "furry" beetle or spider (Nymph of Masked Hunter bug)

by Rick D
(Montreal, Quebec, Canada)

Small, white, flat-ish beetle that looked like it had been sprayed with ceiling stucco. Really! I thought it was a small piece of tissue paper at first. Dark or black shiny eyes (just two I think). Maybe it had six legs, maybe 8, I couldn't tell from my pictures and I didn't examine it closely enough (I just wanted it out of the house!). Found it at end of July inside the house, sitting on a wooden table near some of my motorcycle clothes on the ground, so it probably hitched a ride the day before while riding off-road through an open field of tall flowers near irrigation water. Scooped it up with a piece of paper, it didn't run fast nor fly away, and I deposited it outside in the garden.

little white nautilus shaped insect (Cottony cushion scale)

by Darlene Cepeda
(Stockton, CA, USA)

This tiny little creature is killing my lilac bushes and now it is attaching itself to my rose bushes...EEK! What is it and how can I get rid of it?
It has already sucked the life out of one of my lilac bushes. I dug it up and disposed of it and hoped that would be the end of it but the pest is back this year. I have been spraying it off weekly but it seems to be persistant.....Thank you a zillion times over for any help you can give me. And even though I don't know you Moni I think you do an awesome job!

white small and furry (wooly aphid)

by kayla
(southwick, MA,US)

it is very small about 1/2 cm. it has small clear wings with slight black lines and its abdomine is a white/light blue color and its furry

3" white insect with claws (Chinese praying mantid)

by Sarah Borrasso
(Northern California)

Approximately 3" long, white, with claws in the front and what appears to be some sort of pinchers in the back. Huge eyes, almost alien like.

translucent ground bug (Beetle pupae)

by Aaron, Dan and Molly
(Seattle, Wa)

My friends found this in their garden in Seattle, Wa. It's been raining a lot this May. I think the insect is about an inch long.

Gray and off-white beetle larvae/grub (scarab beetle grub)

by Shauna Samford
(Kingsville, Texas (USA))

I saw the dark gray rear-area sticking out of my plant on my front porch. It was quite large, about the diameter of a large hotdog. It measures approximately 3-4 inches in length and has 3 sets of legs on the front segments. It also has coppery spots running down the majority of its body. I placed it in a jar and am curious as to whether there may be more in the pot. The plant it was in was a "moon plant" that only blooms for about 6 hours once a year in the morning hours. Should I be concerned and what is this? I looked up rhinoceros, dung, ox, and hercules beetles, all to no avail...Any help is greatly appreciated. We are planning a garden and just planted flowers in a flower bed near where this was found. Should we reconsider?

small transparent looking centipedes (millipede)

by John Stout
(Salt Lake City, Ut 84120)

The small centipedes are about 3/8 inch long and seem to gather in clusters in and around decaying wood and debris. I have found them clustered around newly planted squash seeds. Will they prevent the seeds from germinating or growing?

White fuzzy Thing (Mealybug)

by Connie Greenfield
(Freeport, Illinois)

I have many kalanchoes, china doll plant, easter cactus and an asparagus plant that have developed this, I don't know what to call it. Tried a few things, mostly natural such as cooking oil mixed with muphy oil soap and water to get rid of it but nothing helps. I hope you can help with. Thanks so much, Connie

small fuzzy white (mealybugs)

by Jeff Walker
(Garland, Texas)

I recentley found these small white things on my tomato plants. When I took a closer look I noticed that they were a small oval shaped worm with fuzzy white stuff all over them. I have never seen them move except when I scrape them off the plant. I have read several articles that have similiar descriptions to this insect but not any pictures that give me a posative id. I now have them on my orange tree and there are always ants crawling all over them.

six-legged with white body with black and orange stripes (lady bug larva)

I found several of these guys walking on my 'Portuguese hot pepper' plant.
When I first found them, it was on one leaf--there were several white eggs and tiny little ones around them. I picked the leaf off and got rid of them. A week later now, I have many adult versions of the tiny guys I originally saw. It is interesting because they have 6 legs, but the body is soft and worm-like and they can bend it under them or tilt it upwards toward the sky.
I cannot tell if they are beneficial or not, and that is why I am trying to figure out what this is. I cannot find any information at the local nursery or online.
When I observe the insects on the plant, I just notice them crawling and cannot tell if they are sucking or eating anything. I do notice that some of the leaves have turned brown, but I am not sure if that is from the insects or not, as I had been gone for 2 weeks and the self-watering container faltered.

This is on Oahu, Hawaii

Thanks for any help!!

White Spongy cocoon? (spider egg case)

by Deb
(Calgary, Alberta)

Hello, I found several of these at ground level while cleaning up my delphinium perennial garden this spring. I opened one up and found small black flecks that looked like pieces of ash: certainly not like any sort of eggs. Last year my delphiniums were ravaged by aphids or at least I think that is what did the min. the leaves never spread out and eventually died back as did the buds that never bloomed. Could these be aphid homes? Or maybe even better, could they be ladybug homes? Thanks for you help. Hugs, Deb

white Insect/bug looks like mold (Lacewing larvae)

by Britt Watson
(Georgia )

I have no idea what this bug and or insect is, but it looks like it's covered in mold or fungus that grows on trees.
It was found on the deer stand in the woods. What is it?

Big White Grub

1 inch crub of some kind. Found in 1 foot of soil in Los Angeles.

White and orange (Ailanthus Webworm Moth)

by Robert Pollock
(Bridgewater, NJ)

It has what look like orange elytra that have white circles bordered in black that are in band like configurations.

White Furry insect on Peony pod (Hopper)

by Cid White
(Middle Georgia / Laurens County)

In late June 2008, after the petals had started to fall off my peonies, I noticed this "piece of lint with legs"! I've no idea what kind of insect it is; is it a spider, a flea... no idea where to even start researching it. It's extremly tiny, maybe 3/8 of an inch from nose (?) to tip of tail. The "covering" was very much fur-like. Couldn't tell for sure how many leg, but I think 6. It was very alert to my taking it's picture and I had to keep turning the plant as it would back around the pods. A couple of times it raised it's fuzzy little tail and flicked it in a ferious "warning" manner. Any idea at all what this is? I do have a couple more pictures, but not as well focused.

Doug says - I've put this through even though the insect is pretty small just in case Moni can see it (cause it's easy). If not, we'll have to ask you to get a closer view this summer. I note it's pretty hard sometimes for Moni to id things that she can't see clearly.

Growth on dwarf lilac bushes (White scale)

by Linda S.
(New Jersey)

There is a soft, thready, white substance that has appeared on my dwarf lilac bushes in the last week or two on the northfacing side of the bushes. The most recent rainfall was three nights ago, rainfall has been sporadic, brief thunderstorms that are normal for this time of year in NJ.

The white material rubbed off easily when I tried to remove some and the bark beneath was softened and stained my fingertips a light color. There was what appeared to be spider silk-like threads between my fingers afterwards, but no visible insects or arachnids that I could see. The photograph was taken last night which is when I originally submitted my question. Doug suggested I upload the picture here instead.

Any ideas what is infesting my lilacs? How do I remedy this and save the bushes. The lilacs were just gorgeous this spring.

White Wooly Aphid? no (Planthopper nymph)

by Corey Jones
(Whiteville, NC, USA)

This has got to be the most adorable insect that I've ever come across. I found him outside of the carport at my Grandparents house this past summer. They live about an hour from the North Carolina coast. My best guess is that this is a type of Wooly Aphid. Wanted an educated opinion/guess!

White Newly hatched insects (katydid nymphs)

by james
(Maitland, FL, Orange)

This is from the same location, Maitland, Orange County, where the Broad-Necked Root Borer came and was posted a week ago. The little seeds where the (two-hundred or so) insects hatched from have been there for several weeks and I didn't know what they were. The seeds were attached to a black net that resembles the same shape as the seeds themselves. The seeds appear as some kind of insect-creation... a seed-looking fungus maybe; but I didn't think anything living was about to hatch out of there.... Until a week ago when I noticed all the fuzz over the seeds, and saw the little cricket-looking insects standing up there, waiting and moving their tentacles, but not jumping, flying or running away from me. That black net is located on a tennis court, and they were about 50 feet away from grass & nature. The things were there for several days and nights. Don't know how they survived under the heat during the day because there is no shade in that area. I didn't know if there was a mother insect that feeds those things, or if not a mother insect, then were they hatched at the wrong place, far away from food and nutrients, and waited for their rescue? Or, hatched away from nature maybe was a good thing for them, as they were safe from predators. Then the rain and wind finally came, and they weren't seen anymore; if they weren't able to escape prior to that, then perhaps they perished.

White Fuzzy Tailed (Hopper Planthopper nymph)

by Kat
(Chester, Virginia)

I only ever see one and only in the Summer when I put my Orchids out and only on the one Orchid. It hops like a flea but with better accuracy, white fuzzy tail that flicks, rocks back and forth like a mantis and has red/orange eyes. The plant that I find it on doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects.