Yup, I have a few larvae. I have more adults. Hoping they do the job on the aphids.

Like little charcoal-colored alligators, with bright markings.
And the little divils BITE!

Jeri

{{gwi:255279}} They have fearsome looking jaws ("mandibles") sticking out from their heads and almost look like something left over from the movie Alien, but they are ferocious eaters of insect pests (aphids, thrips, scales, whiteflies (which the one in the picture is eating), mites, young caterpillars, etc. - if it's little enough and soft bodied, it's what's for dinner). In fact, the larvae of the green lacewing are so ravenously hungry that the mother lays the eggs on the ends of tiny strands of silk. That way if the oldest egg hatches first it doesn't automatically kill its siblings by eating them as its first meal (they eat insect eggs, too, if the eggs are soft enough for them to pierce with their mandibles).

Even adult lacewings are small (no more than half an inch long from head to wing tip). Lacewing larvae are probably in many of your gardens without your even realizing they are there. They are so small and blend in so well to their surroundings you are unlikely to ever notice them unless you go out of your way to become very familiar with the smaller insects in your gardens.

(If you want to find them, a good place to look for the larvae, once the weather is mild or warm, is at an aphid infestation that's been present for a couple of weeks. Obviously you may not have such an infestation on your roses (if I found such I'd wipe them out immediately with my fingers rather than let them stay there for a couple of weeks), but aphids show up on the new growth of other plants than roses. For instance, if you grow Nasturtiums in your garden you've probably seen black aphids on them before. If you don't go out of your way to wipe out those aphids that would be a good place to look for lacewing larvae, once the aphid infestation had been on the Nasturtiums for two or three weeks.)

York Rose,
Thanks for the useful information and the photo. Bugs are interesting indeed, and I don't know the larval forms of most of mine like I should. They're part of what make the garden entertaining.
Melissa

Thank you SO much for posting this. I had been picking those little nasties off...

Syrphid-fly larvae are major aphid predators. Don't kill the creepy-crawlies unless you are sure they are pests!

Here is a link that might be useful: syrphid larva

Syrphid-fly larvae are great!! When I saw one for the first time, I was aghast - thinking this little green worm was going to devour my roses. But then I realized it was eating an aphid! Looked it up on the internet images and became an instant champion of the creatures. That was last year - this year I was able to recognize the syrphid-fly itself and watched it lay eggs. Interestingly, I had two different kinds of the larvae this year: some that were kind of yellow or orange with black (brown?) and the others were my little green friends from last year. They helped my roses through the early spring onslaught, and those plants are now looking great.

Laura