Finding assassin bugs in Brevard County Florida

[jakemark30]

I am interested in finding some assassin bugs in the wild. I live in Brevard County in Florida and have never been able to find any. Does anyone have any ideas of where to find them in this area? Any tips on their hiding spots?

 

[chanda]

Look very carefully on plants and shrubs. I've had my best luck on flowering plants (many assassin bugs are ambush predators, after all) - but they're not always out in the open. Frequently, they're on the underside of leaves and flowers, waiting for bees, flies, moths, butterflies, or other insects to visit the flowers to collect pollen or nectar. It requires time and patience, because many assassin bugs blend in naturally and they tend to remain very, very still, making them difficult to spot. If you're just walking by, hoping to catch a glimpse of them, you may miss them - but if you stop and really look closely at a plant, taking the time to turn leaves, look under blossoms, check the stems at the heart of the plant, you'd be surprised how many hidden bugs can be found on a seemingly "empty" plant.

 

[jakemark30]

Look very carefully on plants and shrubs. I've had my best luck on flowering plants (many assassin bugs are ambush predators, after all) - but they're not always out in the open. Frequently, they're on the underside of leaves and flowers, waiting for bees, flies, moths, butterflies, or other insects to visit the flowers to collect pollen or nectar. It requires time and patience, because many assassin bugs blend in naturally and they tend to remain very, very still, making them difficult to spot. If you're just walking by, hoping to catch a glimpse of them, you may miss them - but if you stop and really look closely at a plant, taking the time to turn leaves, look under blossoms, check the stems at the heart of the plant, you'd be surprised how many hidden bugs can be found on a seemingly "empty" plant.

I got excited today because I thought I found some, but what I believe I found was actually dysdercus saturellus. They have similar mouth parts, but different colors. They are also not carnivorous.

 

[Salmonsaladsandwich]

Zelus longipes is a pretty cool species that's usually quite common around flowers and other low vegetation in Florida

 

[chanda]

I got excited today because I thought I found some, but what I believe I found was actually dysdercus saturellus. They have similar mouth parts, but different colors. They are also not carnivorous.

They have similar mouthparts in the sense that they are both Hemiptera and have piercing/sucking mouthparts, but the mouthparts of an assassin bug are generally much shorter and more robust than those of a cotton stainer like Dysdercus saturellus.

If you look at the probosics of Dysdercus saturellus (https://bugguide.net/node/view/195581/bgimage) you can see that it extends well beyond the head and down a fair portion of the body. Other plant-feeding Hemiptera like stink bugs, seed bugs, and leaf-footed bugs, etc. also tend to have a long, slender proboscis, designed for slipping into plant tissue, seeds, and fruits to extract fluids.

Compare to the rostrums of these assassin bugs: Arilus cristatus (https://bugguide.net/node/view/2059854/bgimage), Zelus luridus (https://bugguide.net/node/view/659217/bgimage), and Phymata fasciata (https://bugguide.net/node/view/1745673/bgimage). Note that the rostrum is not much longer than the head, and does not extend significantly down the body.