Maybe a Flower Longhorn beetle?

Beetles certainly come in bizarre forms, Magpie. My favorite bizarro type is the Tooth Nosed Snout Weevil. You are probably as close as anyone to the answer. I'm sorry I couldn't be of help, Dee. Diane

IDK, but it is rather elegant-looking...for a bug...

It's not a bug. It's an insect. Only true bugs, Homoptera, are bugs. Diane

Hemiptera, I mean. They've changed this classification over the years, I think, since I took Entomology decades ago, and I do mean decades. If it's a beetle, it's Coleoptera. Diane

Mischievous Magpie is right, I think. It looks like the slender flower longhorn beetle. Larvae feed on dead and decaying hardwood, adults feed on nectar of roses and other flowers. So no worries about your elegant visitors.

“Saw these critters this morning. They're on my roses so I'm guessing they can't be good lol.”

I’d like to remind newcomers to this forum that it is a Stigma-Free zone.

Sorry for the delay - didn't have access to my computer yesterday. Thank you all for your responses! I googled and I do think this is my little critter. Good to know it's nothing to worry about!

rifis, I'm not sure how to take your comment - is it meant to be humorous? I'm not really a newcomer - have been on GW for at least 25 years, and while yes I don't post to the roses forum much (because for years I didn't grow roses) at one time I was a fairly regular poster here on this forum. But that aside, can I take from your comment that everyone here lives in harmony with Japanese beetles? Or does nothing to control blackspot? Or lets the deer use their garden as a buffet? Because I am the first to understand that everything on this earth has a purpose, and I can't even bring myself to squish a bug - or an insect lol. I harvest my parsley around swallowtail caterpillars so they can continue to eat. I won't even put down pepper to keep my neighbor's darn chickens and 20 cats out of my garden because I don't want it to get in their eyes. I spent 11 hours last Saturday with animal rescue trying to save a possum in my yard.

But if something is destroying a plant that I put time, effort, and money into, I would at least like to know what it is. And while that critter may be a perfectly decent critter who is only trying to make a living and support their family, lol, that doesn't mean it's good for my rose!

But thank you all for your input. Much appreciated!

:)

Dee

Diggerdee, glad you got an ID for your relatively harmless critter (I don't dare call it a bug after the enlightening info on labels). Rifis has a lot of comments that are intended as humor, some of which I get and some of which I don't. I don't think it was any comment on ways to control the truly nasty bugs in our environment. In my yard, I squish JBs with vigor and tenacity and throw their nasty carcasses out in my lawn to limit their impact on my roses.

Diggerdee did you used to live in Wyoming? We had DiggerDave posting here for years as well as on HMF and I thought he was a team with Dee. Might just be a coincidence of names, but regardless welcome back to posting on the Rose forum!

Cynthia

LOL, no, Cynthia, no relation to DiggerDave but I DO remember him! I guess we just both have good taste in user names. Or both like alliteration lol.

Good for you, squishing those JBs! Ugh, I can't bring myself to squish anything, at least not with my hands. My two biggest nemesises (nemisi, lol?) are the red lily leaf beetle, and oriental beetles. Except for a two small patches (about a dozen total lilies) I've stopped growing lilies, which is sad because they are beautiful flowers. They're a ratty mess each year but I keep hoping things will get better with the experimental parasitic wasp that was introduced to the north of me in MA. The orientals destroy my daisies mostly, and other things too. They LOVE the daylilies but luckily don't do too much damage there as the blooms only last for a day anyway.

I do think however the JBs are finally discovering my yard. Never had much of a problem with them when I grew roses about 15 years ago. Now they're getting worse. Just a half hour ago I took a stroll through my garden and saw like ten clustered in one rose bloom. Yuck.

:)

Dee

Dee:

Guilty. I was trying to be funny. To draw attention, in a humorous way, to your guess that since the critters were on your roses, they could not be good (ie: they were bad). My comment was ostensibly directed at those who might see your comment and think ill of your judgement, and, by extension, you.

I am pleased to see we share an appreciation of insects and other forms of life. I didn’t know this about you when I wrote my comment.

Dee -- re: Japanese beetles: do not succumb to any advertising about the infamous traps. Many years ago, I got some and IMHO they are simply an attractant to more beetles seeing the neon sign for a great road-side eatery.

Whenever the JBs do decide to check out my gardens, and if I am in the mood, I take a container of soapy water around, knocking the JBs into it where they drown. One "good" thing about JBs is that they are easy to flick off the plants, unlike the red lily beetle, which likes to suddenly drop off as soon as I approach them. grrrr. The JBs just cling on the plant with a superior air of insouciance, thumbing their tiny little noses at me. Die, you blasted things, die!

And I totally agree with you about squishing insects with my hands -- ain't gonna do that!!!! Yuck in the extreme!

From what I've read, it's NOT a good idea at all to squish beetles; doing so makes them release their pherormones,which attract more beetles. The soapy water is better.

Ahhh, bart bart that's good to know. Makes me feel a bit justified in my squeamishness lol!

roxanna, yes, I have heard others say the same thing about those beetle traps. I've never tried them and don't intend to. :)

Funny thing, years ago, in a desperate attempt to find something, *anything* that would help with my oriental beetle problem, I put down BT, which I heard was good for dealing with JBs (which I didn't have at the time). It was tedious - I put it down 2tbsp at a time, every two feet, over at least an eighth of an acre, if not more! Well, it didn't help much with the orientals, and it was at that time that I started seeing JBs! So I don't know.... that's not the only reason I stopped growing roses - I had beetles, blackspot, lack of sun, and just didn't have time to attend to roses.

LOL I still don't have time, but I do have a bit more sun due to loss of trees, and I'd like to think I'm an older, wiser gardener lol - I realize I had bought many roses that just wouldn't do well for me, and I'm trying to be more realistic. I guess I had a rocky start with Iceberg, lol, but I also did purchase Julia Child, who is doing very well. So hoping for good things moving forward!

:)

Dee

As I understand it from a video by Paul Zimmerman, Btg works if you spray it on the leaves periodically so the JBs eat it and die. Anything that doesn't eat the leaves isn't affected apparently, so only the nasty rose eating monsters succumb. I don't know if the sprinkling around the rose would have the same effect. Paul also said that JBs love pelargoniums (annual geraniums) more than roses, so if you put a couple of pots of geraniums sprayed with BtG far away from your roses, presumably the JBs will hunt them down and die.

Yes, I have heard that squishing JBs and leaving them by your roses attracts more. That's why I dump them in a bucket after squishing or toss them far away if I can't. I find that a lot of them fly away rather than conveniently dropping into soapy water, so I want to be sure they die a miserable death. Immediately.

Cynthia