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pests Nasty new pest

P

Phildeez

These things are freaking disgusting. There are dozens of them, little yellow-brown grubs that are eating quite a lot of foliage. The disgusting part is the brown gooey sludge that every one of them has accruing on its back. As soon as you touch them they excrete even more and it makes a huge mess on the plant and my hands. I have searched extensively and I cannot find any info about grubs with this sort of brown liquid on them, but they are doing a lot of damage.

This is the best picture I could get without a tripod, the brown you can see on its back is actually a thick layer of sludge.

DSC06016.jpg


They sort of look like Colorado Potato Beetle larvae except I find no mention of the brown stuff in any info about them.

Thanks
Phil
 
cpb larvae are more like fat bugs than a caterpillar. your "grub" looks like a cat to me.

if it is a cat i have a very simple and effect solution - BT. BT is a bacteria that kills caterpillars, it will kill butterfly cats too so if you have milkweed or other plants they lay eggs on nearby be careful. i buy the liquid concentrate, 1 tsp makes a quart. bt breaks down in the sun, washes off from rain and is completely non toxic to people, pets and all critters except caterpillars. you spray it on the leaves, no need to coat the bottoms, and when the cats eat the leaf they stop feeding and die in about 2-3 days. bt causes crystals to form in their gut which cuts their gut open and they die from septic shock, ie they poison themselves.

BT is sold under different names, Dipel is one i know of. you can buy BT at any decent garden shop, feed and grain like agway or blue seal, i have even seen it in home depot. it comes in a powder but the liquid concentrate is easy to mix with water and put into a spray bottle or sprayer. BT keeps forever! just store it in a cool, dry and out of the light place, don't let it get hot like in a garage. mine was bought in 1993 or 1994 and i have 4 or 5 oz left in a 16 oz bottle.

there are 3 different strains of BT, one is for potato beetle larvae and you don't want that one. another is for something else that is off the wall and not common so i doubt you'll see that version. you want the common most often used BT, should be easy to find. it is also effective against tomato horn worms and if you grow tomatoes you will appreciate that! cost is perhaps $10 to $18 for a pint of liquid concentrate that will make hundreds of gallons of spray.
 
Thanks for the info Tom, I would say they look like caterpillars but they do not have legs in the rear, just a set up front. I thought caterpillars would have more legs but I am no expert. You can sort of see in the picture they just have a small set of legs near the head and they move VERY slowly.

Anyone ID this nasty bug?
 
Sorry man, I looked in both of my insect books, I didn't see anything even close. That thing is NASTY.
Good luck!
 
Best guess is a beetle larva of some sort. They only have the legs in the front by the head and many the short squat body. It looks a lot like a ladybug larva in build so prob a beetle built similar as an adult to.
My link
potato beetles
Just doing a little googling I come up with a type of potato beetle as they eat leaves as larva and do the slime poop thing.
 
cpb go thru several instar states. they start small and molt into the next instar and are a bit larger, iirc there are 5 or 7 instar stages. they are roundish tho this thing looks to be longer and thinner like a cat. i say dry BT and watch to see if it dies. if not then you learned about a safe pesticide but did not solve the problem now IF it is a cpb larvae there is a specific BT for that 1 and only that 1 insect, regular BT has no effective on cpb larvae. cpb larvae are on potatoes but sometimes tomatoes. since peppers are in the same family as potatoes and tomatoes (and eggplant) it may be a cpb. any chance you can get a close up? google cpb larvae and look at them too. i am familiar with ladybug larvae and they look like tiny alligators with a bit of orange on their back, i don't think that is a ladybug larvae but it is hard to see.

also on that leaf there are 2 tiny spots that look like eggs on the 3rd leaf tip from the end of the leaf. i can't recall the color of cpb eggs as it's been a few years since i grew potatoes but if you google image them i am sure you'll see them and the color. iirc they are pale yellow and those do look like that color but again it's hard to say. the more i look at the picture the more i think it may be a cpb and again that's a specific BT that will state on the can FOR CPB.
 
Definitely beetle larvae! Also, they are from the same family as the CPB (Chrysomelidae). Sorry I couldn't tell you what species though!
 
Thanks guys! You nailed it with that link onefowl, those are a dead on match. Does the species matter? Or will the TB that kills cpb larvae also get these? I am not really that concerned since my season is about over and I am only here until next September, but I would rather they not pupate and eat everything early next year.
 
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