Garden Helpers

Today I got to enjoy two of my favorite outdoor activities- gardening and photography! I found some exciting little beasts and just finished learning a bit more about their stories. As any gardener knows, there are many insects and other invertebrates to be found in the garden. Some, you are usually not happy to see, while others are welcome encounters!

Here is a garden spider, found above my herb garden. Spiders feed on many "pest" insects, so I was happy to see this one. There was even a tiny yellow/orange smiley face on her abdomen!

My pea plants were covered in aphids. I brushed a bunch of them off the leaves, and watched ants collect them and carry them off.

Ants are widely known to "farm" aphids for the honeydew they secrete. They collect, protect, and even introduce aphids to plants to graze, guarding their herd. But when these aphids fell, I guess the ants decided it was butchering time! They didn't seem to be very gently tending the aphids they carried off.

Aphids have many enemies however.

This odd-looking aphid is actually called an "aphid mummy" A tiny parisitoid wasp laid her eggs in the aphid, and now the dead aphid has a baby wasp growing inside its body. The tiny wasp will emerge from a hole it makes in the mummy. The wasps are rarely seen but the bloated mummies can be found as evidence of their actions.

This is known as an "aphid wasp" subfamily Pemphredoninae. I saw this one tackle an aphid and carry it off. She paralyzes it and leaves it as food for her young.

I also saw this tiny blue wasp flying around the aphids. I wondered if she too was hunting them, though she didn't appear to be taking any. I then learned - after getting a closer look at the photos - that this is a tiny cuckoo wasp (family Chrysididae). 

Like cuckoo bees, cuckoo wasps parasitize other wasp nests, laying their egg in an established host nest so their young can feed on the work of other wasps. These cuckoos are known to be nest parasites to the aphid wasp I had seen collecting aphids nearby.

But these cuckoo wasps, perhaps genus Pseudomalus, also like to feed on aphid honeydew, just like ants.

The little blue cuckoo wasp, also known as "jewel wasp" was flitting around the aphids, collecting honeydew. So as a parasite of an aphid parasite, and connoisseur of aphid honeydew, I guess these wasps aren't technically helping my aphid problem. But they are beautiful!

Here is another different kind of aphid, with wings. Aphids go through several stages as colonies, involving sexual winged adults and asexual stages where young aphids can be churned out - basically cloning themselves.

Here is another popular aphid enemy, which has been feeding on a scale insect.

As I was checking plants in the garden, this very dusty-looking toad jumped out of my way.

This cabbage white caterpillar was feeding on my broccoli. I've been picking them off and throwing them out of the garden. But this time I dropped it in the vicinity of the toad I had just seen.

When I looked back, I saw the toad had snapped up the prize.

And what would any garden be without pollinators? The bees are still enjoying the buttercups on the lawn, and so am I.

Happy Mother's Day!