Based on the little flares on its legs, it looks like a leaf-footed bug (in a nymph stage). These are related to the squash and stink bugs. Hand pick that off your 'maters!

We have been inundated in our area with another type of stink bug and what a friggin' nuisance they are crawling around on everything and getting into the hourse. :-\

I have never seen anything like this sort of infestation around here in my life.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stink and Leaf-Footed bugs

Thanks so much! I had pretty good luck using soap and oil spray on them...last year. ( the red and black ones)

Man, what a pain that (bad) bug season is here and I expect you have some exotics where you are! If I saw that on my tomato, it would get flicked off to fall 18 stories. LOL

This is indeed a nymph of the leaf footed bug, a member of the "true bug" family that includes chinch bugs and stink bugs. They have piercing/sucking mouthparts and cannot chew the holes in your tomatoes that you see. They do however make small imperfections in green fruit at an early stage by sucking juice, damage that doesn't tend to make itself known until the fruit is larger. When such affected fruit ripen the skin and underlying flesh tend to show small spots of white, calloused tissue. The sunflower is an extremely attractive vector for this insect.

ya,,,that be a stink bug...they suck the juices out of maters and ya may notice some lil white spots on the toms..signs of feeding...you can put out some sevin dust or just take the hose and spray them off. I'm getting some lil red ones this year, but I hate to put out sevin cause it also kills other beneficial insects...I use gloves and pull and crush....stink..but it's worth it.
Happy Gardening..

I have not seen any yet, they usually come to my garden with the hot, dry weather and we have had none of any of that yet. I battled them with soapy water spray last year, making a round very early and late and spraying it directly on the dang stink bugs. It worked pretty well for me.
Bill P.

I had tons of them last year. They seem really nasty and I killed any I could catch, but I honestly can't say whether they really damaged anything.

So far this year I haven't seen as many, although

These bugs have been getting worse for me each year. Problem I have is that they fly just out of reach when I try to catch them. This year, when they start to show up I am going to try puting a piece of stocking in the hose of my portable vacuum cleaner and try sucking them off of the plants. Then I'll just put a twist tie on the piece of stocking and toss it away, or step on it. Let you know if this works.

Bad, bad bugs, and nasty, too! They're really attracted to large squash plants, so if you have a spot for a few away from the plants you're growing for food, you might plant a mini-trap crop for these felons.

Here is a link that might be useful: Trap Crops -- Squash (Stink) Bugs and Cucumber Beetles

Squash those bugs, add them to your soapy water...

Newtxan,

The bugs in your pic look a lot like assassin bug nymphs to me.
If that's what they are, you definitely wanna keep them around.

Here's a pic of a wheelbug which is in the assassin bug family.
I find dozens of these in my garden each year.
Yup, they suck the life out of Japanese beetles...my nemesis.

{{gwi:63347}}

peggy

I don't think what she photographed was an assassin bug. The site below has three pages of assassin bug pictures. Scroll down to see the categories on the left. None of them has that "leafed" set of hind legs.

Here is a link that might be useful: What's That Bug

Peggy - the bug in your picture doesn't have flares on the hind legs like the OP's first picture. The one in the OP's 2nd picture, it's hard to tell, but that first one is pretty significant when trying to key out an insect.

Here's your bug, an Eastern Leaffooted Bug.

You know, this thread made me try to look up some of these creatures that I saw last year and this year. I have a picture of one nymph that was sitting on my basil last August:

And it looks like a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (2nd instar nymph). According to USDA, these are supposedly Asian in origin and were first found in Allentown, PA in the late '90s (according to Penn State) & 2001 (according to USDA 2001). Philly is about 45 miles SE of Allentown. They hang out in trees and houses and are a pest to fruits. Looking at the adults, those are exactly what have been practically swarming around here last summer, although I guess "swarm" is not a good term as they are pretty slow crawlers and you can basically go up to one and hand-remove... ie., they don't immediately respond to fly away. My entire family in this area complained about them last summer including surviving in the house all winter (and they were in my apartment this past winter and spring as well).

I have never seen anything like this before last year in such a quantity. Lord help us all! A brand new pest.

Here is a link that might be useful: OMG look out Eastern PA!!

No, I wasn't talking about the bug in yummykaz's picture. I was referring to the one in newtxan pic 6 post back, Lol! I agree that yummykaz' bug is a leaf footed bug. I get those all the time.

I'm pretty sure mine are leaf-footed bugs based on my research last year and where I tend to see them and the eventual adults.

I do believe I saw a young assassin bug a couple of weeks ago though. I let him be.

Here is a link that might be useful: leaf-footed bug nymph photo

I meant to add that I still don't think it's entirely clear from my photo if these are leaf-footed or assassin bugs. In researching them last year, I found that online sources are extremely inconsistent. From the photos I've seen, the nymphs of both types look very similar, which makes sense since they're both members of the order Hemiptera -- "true bugs".

So it's mainly my observations -- they tend to cluster on fruits (I've seen them mostly on tomatoes, but some peppers and now artichokes) and later in the summer I find what are clearly adult leaf-footed bugs on the same plants where I saw the nymphs -- that lead me to be pretty certain about mine.

Wow, you're right, they do look very similiar. I found a close-up shot of an assassin bug nymph.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1339300}}

Peggy - yeah, after looking at many pictures, it's amazing the variety of these insects but then also amazing how similar their traits are (which is why they get classed together).

I just found 2 adults of my stupid bug sitting on a couple of my lilac leaves. Of course the lilac is sitting next to my Earl's Faux tomato plant so those suckers had to go and both got flicked off! Can't have nuthin' on my Earl's! I'm sure more are around hiding somewhere. :-\

Jenny

You gotta' kill 'em. Flick them off into a plastic cup with water and detergent or even Sevin.

There's an Eastern Phoebe sitting three feet away from me on the branch of a fig tree right outside my window. Cute little thing, it and a partner have been catching bugs all afternoon from that perch. And calling. Every time they utter a sound, their folded wings lift a bit!

Anney - I need that bird! LOL I'll make up a soap solution and keep out there to flick them into.

There are many, many "bugs" in this family (Order Hemiptera) such as assassin bugs, water scorpions, wheel bugs, kissing bugs (which can transmit Chaga's disease), stink bugs, chinch bugs, blister "beatles" (sic), clown bugs, you get the picture. These are generally considered pests and most folks try to eliminate them. Other "bugs", such as the "Big-eyed-bugs" are especially beneficial insects in the garden and one should learn to recognize this bug in all its stages from larvae to adult. "Big-eyed-bugs" trounce on other insect pests and you want to keep them. Here in Texas we have a "red-eyed-bug" for want of a better term, that is a voracious predator of other pests including other "bugs", but damned if I can ID this bug on the internet. Your photo is of a leaf-footed-bug, very common here in Texas, and a sap sucker as an adult but especially as an early nymph. My experience is that these bugs don't tend to occur in large numbers as adults unless you happen to have a decent sized sunflower patch nearby, and generally can be snipped with scissors, or hand picked and squished. But as nymphs, they can occur in large numbers on many different plant hosts, including my precious succulents, and can do a good bit of damage if not checked. I would do a search of the good "bugs" (specific hemipterans) in your area so you don't end up eliminating potentially beneficial insects. Your leaf-footed-bug, however, is not a beneficial insect. Unless you hate sunflowers.