The Body Snatcher
Posted: October 31, 2022 Filed under: Gardening | Tags: Aphid Lion, Gulf Coast gardening, hummingbird bush, Junk Bug, nature photography, Southern Gardening 20 Comments
This gruesome creature carries the dead bodies it collects upon its back. The creature relentlessly paces back and forth, over and under leaves preying on innocent aphids and taking their dead remains with it.
Happy gruesome Halloween.
I spotted this very weird bug on my Hummingbird Bush that has been covered with aphids and so much honeydew that it made my hair sticky when I got too close. This gruesome creature is actually good news for gardeners as they eat the aphids that suck on plants and cause damage or death. These bugs are called junk bugs or aphid lions and are the larval stage of green lacewings which are beneficial insects for the garden. The junk bug is about the size of the tip of my pinkie.
Even though they are gruesome, the junk bug is welcome to haunt my garden.
Automatic Gardening & Real Gluten Free Food 
I’d call this one cool rather than gruesome. It reminds me of the caddisfly, whose larvae build a ‘case’ out of whatever materials are at hand. Sometimes their cases seem to be jeweled.
It is a really cool bug, but I thought it would be a good Halloween theme.
Nice! I once wrote a post about one I found in my garden, but it was covered with plant fuzz, called a Lint Bug. 🙂 Happy Halloween!
I could not figure out what I was looking at.
Is it the pinkish-colored ball on the stem?
It is the fuzzy looking ball.
Weird and wonderful again!
I spent a long time searching the internet for that one.
EW!
I’ve seen those critters, too. They’re so weird, but in an odd way, kind of cute!
They are doing a job that needs to be done. I must have millions of aphids.
The junk bug, I don’t know if I’ve heard of that one! Will look it up!
I’m pretty sure I have it correctly identified. I finally found a photo that looked like it.
Nature is so interesting!
You can never tell what you will find when you have the time to look.
I wish I had some here as there are millions of aphids on my roses!
I could really use more. There was also a Ladybug working.
They would be welcome in my garden too – patrolling my climbing rose would be perfect. Impossible to tell if one would qualify as a horned beastie, but an adorned beastie? Certainly!
I have never seen one. Fascinating!
I couldn’t figure out what it was and that is what the internet came up with.