An Assassin in the Sunflowers, Idaho

DrFumblefinger 9/24/235:00 AM

It's fall in Idaho. The days are getting shorter and while the weather is still nice, there's noticeable cooling at night.

Our garden is about done for the year. The sunflowers are still doing well, and as I my wife and I were deciding which ones are ready to harvest, we came across an unusual insect sitting on one of the larger sunflowers. It was a bug we'd never seen before.

My wife has the Seek by Inaturalist app on her iPhone which she likes to use to identify plants and bugs. It's free and very useful if you've never tried it. The app identified the insect as an assassin bug (aka ambush bug). These photos were taken with the iPhone.

As the name implies, these are a group of insects that kill and eat other insects. They have a long proboscis with which they sting and kill.

If you are interested, you can learn more about assassin bugs at this link.

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