Wow, cool pics. Do you have turtles as pets?

Melba

Cool pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Wow, the turtle eggs are really neat. I hope I have some assasin bugs in my garden, I just found the first Jap. Beetle of the season and he was eating canna leaes. GRRRR.

no, no turtles as pets. I do have a pond about a hundred yards down the hill from the garden. I saw a snapping turtle behind the pond a couple weeks ago, so maybe they're snapping turtle eggs?? I was very surprised to dig them up!

I've seen those bugs in my garden and wondered what they were. Never knew if they were friend or foe.

Karen

Great photos! Thanks for sharing them.

Cool photos! I have assassin bugs, but didn't know that's what they were. The eggs are a real treasure. Hope you have a child to share them with. We are short on tortoises this year, but really long on frogs...no doubt a result of our record rainfall.

Speaking of which, it's only supposed to rain twice this week. Once for three days, the other for four.

Send me some rain! We're officially a severe drought area with a deficit of over 7 inches.

Karen

well I found the assassin bug shortly after he shed his nymph shell - you can still see it on the limb by him. pretty cool looking adult!

{{gwi:421320}}

no update on the turtle eggs. I'm afraid to dig them up again to see if they hatched or not. I don't want to keep disturbing them.

Barbi

That is a Wheel Bug...whatever you do, don't touch it...ouch LOL!
...and are you sure those aren't snake eggs? I ask because I dug up some black rat snake eggs last year...looked very similar...

yeah, I know I don't want to pick them up, but they are such neat looking bugs!

How neat!! Thanks for sharing...I love it :D

Here is a link that might be useful: Wheel Bug

Vera,
I noticed the part that says it has the "best developed mouth parts of any true bug"...(gulp)

Hope I don't see any for real.

L

My Yvonne's salvia are covered with large black ants and assassin bugs. Are the assassins after the ants? What else do they eat?

Karen

Karen...
check for aphids....the ants could be farming the aphids and the Assassin bugs are trying to eat them both :D

Vera

Thanks, Vera. I don't see any aphids now, but the sun is so low in the sky now, I can't see much of anything. I'll look again tomorrow, eartier in the day. Though, in the past, when I've had ants and aphids, the ants were those little brown ones, and these are the huge black monsters.

Karen