Monday, June 22, 2015

MORE purple "caterpillars"

So look at what James spotted yesterday on our velvetleaf mallow! Sawfly larva, just like the ones Pi found in her yard recently. I had just posted about them, then Melody commented about Neil Sperry's June 18 column, which touched on sawflies. Naturally, we're not going to any kind of control on ours. I'm hoping the abundance of birds in our Wildscape will take care of some of them.

P.S. I posted some of these images on Bugguide.net, and Rose sent me to this link, "Unidentified mallow-feeding sawfly larvae." Seems our larvae may not be Cimbex americana after all.

UPDATE: They are Neoptilia tora.




1 comment:

Melody said...

Sheryl, I'm with you on letting the birds be my exterminators! I always recommend that gardeners put out bird feeders to bring birds to their yards. They know they are welcome and will build their nests nearby and feed their babies lots of bugs!

Also, your photos are awesome! Great close-ups!

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