Hi All,

This evening whilst clearing some ground round the veggies I found a teeny
little insect. Three sets of legs, carrotty orange in colour, two curved
antaenna, about the same size as a red ant and had wings. I took it inside
in a jar to check out my books, (couldn't find it in them!) when it was in
the jar it's colour looked as though it had faded to a peachy hue, this
could have been a trick of the light tho. My question is, does anyone know
what this was and if it's friend or foe in the veg garden. Just in case it's
significant, we have an enormous amount of wireworms due to the fact this is
recently tilled land could it be related in some way??

Many thanks
Shan

I don't know but there is a rule of thumb that comes from Gardeners'
Question Time and generally works well. If it's slow it's usually bad and if
it's fast it's a goodie. I think that's the right way around, haven't woken
up yet!
shannie wrote:
: Hi All,
:
: This evening whilst clearing some ground round the veggies I found a
: teeny little insect. Three sets of legs, carrotty orange in colour,
: two curved antaenna, about the same size as a red ant and had wings.
: I took it inside in a jar to check out my books, (couldn't find it in
: them!) when it was in the jar it's colour looked as though it had
: faded to a peachy hue, this could have been a trick of the light tho.
: My question is, does anyone know what this was and if it's friend or
: foe in the veg garden. Just in case it's significant, we have an
: enormous amount of wireworms due to the fact this is recently tilled
: land could it be related in some way??
:
: Many thanks
: Shan

In article , The Devil's Advocate
writes
I don't know but there is a rule of thumb that comes from Gardeners'
Question Time and generally works well. If it's slow it's usually bad and if
it's fast it's a goodie. I think that's the right way around, haven't woken
up yet!

That's the right way round. Logic is that if it eats other insects (ie
it's a goodie, not a plant eater) it needs ot be fast to catch them,
whereas the plant eaters sit around sucking sap all day and don't need
to be fast.

You could wonder why they don't need to be fast to run away, but the
survival strategy for the species is usually to have a vast number of
offspring produced at short intervals so it doesn't matter if 99.9 per
cent of them are eaten.

--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

On Wed, 16 Apr 2003 05:05:00 +0000 (UTC), "The Devil's Advocate"
wrote:

I don't know but there is a rule of thumb that comes from Gardeners'
Question Time and generally works well. If it's slow it's usually bad and if
it's fast it's a goodie. I think that's the right way around, haven't woken
up yet!
shannie wrote:

Be careful though. The larvae of beneficial insects are slow.
Hoverflies are beneficial and their larva look at first glance like
caterpillars.

Just learn to identify such larvae.

H.
Grow a little garden

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