Question of the Week – Spined Soldier Bug – beneficial

I had a photo of bugs on a soybean leaf last week, and they are stink bugs, but the good kind.

These are Spined Soldier Bugs and they eat caterpillars, so they help us out in the soybean field. I’ve seen them walking around with captured caterpillars. When I first glanced at this hatchout I thought, oh no, we may have a pod feeding stinkbug problem here, but on closer examination I saw the metallic color of the eggs and that and the appearance of the tiny bugs lets us know they are beneficials.

This is an instance when we can call these insects “bugs” and be scientifically right. These belong to the true bug family.

Here’s a link to a good publication from Florida about them.

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/beneficial/podisus_maculiventris.htm

 

 This week I have a photo of a pasture weed that was brought in to me for identification and control advice. What is it?