When I used to want to know what an egg or larva was, I would put it in a glass jar with a lid and then wait and see. Have hatched some interesting things that way, including a clutch of blue tailed lizards that the kids found eggs of in the compost pile years ago. (They're born with blue tails.)

This might be more helpful. I have just pulled out Rodale's Color Handbook of Garden Insects by Anna Carr and they have a picture of squash bug eggs and they look just like that. The caption says Eggs: brown, shiny, laid in groups or singly on the underside of leaves and stems.

So I think that's them. The book doesn't have pics of all insect eggs or even all stages of all insects, but it is still very helpful.

Looks like squash bug eggs to me, but even if they aren't, I'd crush them all. They can't be good.

Jo

They probably are squash bug eggs and off the top of my head I cannot think of another pest whose eggs are that exact same color. However, I've never seen squash bug eggs on a plant that isn't in the cucurbit family.

It is really hard to identify insect eggs solely based on appearance because often there are different kinds of insects whose eggs look similar. I try to identify eggs based on the appearance of the eggs themselves, the plant they're found on, and (hopefully) the presence of mama (or daddy) bugs or young, recently-hatched larvae. In your case, though, apparently all you have to go by are the eggs themselves.

In general, insect eggs this late in the season are bad guys and not good guys. In the spring, though, you have lots of good insects, like lady bugs, laying eggs and you wouldn't want to accidentally destroy lady bug eggs, for example, because lady bugs eat tons of harmful insects and their eggs too. (For the record, lady bug eggs are yellow.)

Finding and destroying insect eggs is a great way to protect your plants from infestations but I don't like to destroy eggs if I cannot identify them because they might be beneficial insects, and beneficial insects are my main source of pest control in my vegetable garden. I like Dorothy's method of letting some hatch out in controlled circumstances to see what hatches.

Dawn