A Wad Of Cotton That Moves
Posted: Sun Jun 27, 2021 7:19 am
Pickles came flying into the house yesterday afternoon hollering, "You gotta come see this bug! It's all white and wooly! I thought it was a piece of cotton and then it MOVED! It might be it's what is eating holes in the eggplant leaves." Well, who can resist that kind of excitement? 
And here's the critter on the underside of an eggplant leaf:
I've seen a few of these before but didn't know what they were. I took the point of my pocketknife and carefullly touched the white cotton, some of which fell off. So I started carefully scraping more off until I could see legs and a head and then I dispatched it. Off to do some research.
As it turns out, I shouldn't have smooshed it. It is a debris-carrying green lacewing larva. These larva cover themselves with the dead bodies of prey they've sucked the life out of (like aphids, etc) or plant material to disguise themselves. Because they feed on other insects I doubt that this one was chewing holes in eggplant leaves. Next time I will leave it alone to grow up and make a lot more good green insect eating lacewings!
And here's the critter on the underside of an eggplant leaf:I've seen a few of these before but didn't know what they were. I took the point of my pocketknife and carefullly touched the white cotton, some of which fell off. So I started carefully scraping more off until I could see legs and a head and then I dispatched it. Off to do some research.
As it turns out, I shouldn't have smooshed it. It is a debris-carrying green lacewing larva. These larva cover themselves with the dead bodies of prey they've sucked the life out of (like aphids, etc) or plant material to disguise themselves. Because they feed on other insects I doubt that this one was chewing holes in eggplant leaves. Next time I will leave it alone to grow up and make a lot more good green insect eating lacewings!