When you have an infestation of bed bugs (Figure 1), bleach should not be used as a control method. Bleach can be harmful to people if not used carefully, and it will not work effectively to completely eradicate bed bugs from your ... READ MORE
Category: Pests & Disease, Pests & Disease, UF/IFAS, UF/IFAS Extension, Work & Life
The twospotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, is a total glutton. Infamous for eating just about everything – more than 200 species of ornamental, vegetable and fruit crops – the twospotted spider mite is the most economically important ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Pests & Disease
Entomopathogenic is a long adjective that simply means, “capable of causing disease in insects.” Most commonly, the term refers to nematodes, fungi or bacteria that cause potentially fatal diseases in insects. Entomopathogenic organisms ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Pests & Disease
Those little, squirming things in your birdbath are container-breeding mosquitoes (Figure 1). These mosquitoes are in their larval stage. Adult container-breeding mosquitoes lay eggs wherever water collects, which can be natural structures—like ... READ MORE
Category: Florida-Friendly Landscaping, Home Landscapes, Natural Resources, Pests & Disease, Pests & Disease, UF/IFAS, UF/IFAS Extension
In England they have been called ladybirds for over 600 years, but in the United States we call them ladybugs. The name is a misnomer, though – these insects are not bugs at all, but are actually beetles (and they are not all ladies.) They ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Pests & Disease
The word “phytophagous” is an adjective that means “plant-eating,” and it’s typically used to describe arthropods that feed on the tissues of living plants, but not those that consume pollen or nectar. You’ve probably also heard ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Crops, Pests & Disease, Wildlife
Between April and November, you might notice spike-tailed green worms (Figure 1) feasting on your tomato plants’ leaves and fruit. These voracious creatures ravaging your garden are caterpillars called tobacco or tomato hornworms. The caterpillars ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Florida-Friendly Landscaping, Home Landscapes, Pests & Disease, Pests & Disease, UF/IFAS, UF/IFAS Extension
Welcome to another installment of Bug Week’s recurring movie review feature, “Regular-Sized Bugs on the Big Screen,” where our critics examine films that feature normal-sized arthropods (i.e. not radiation-spawned behemoths) in supporting ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Crops
Welcome to another installment of “Regular-Sized Bugs on the Big Screen,” a series of Bug Week blog posts meant to tip the Bug Week Board of Critics’ hats to arthropods that appear alongside human actors in feature films. Today, we’re ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Crops
It may feel as though ants, no matter what you seem to do, will never leave your house. There are several reasons why ants continue to find their way inside your home. Doing dishes every day and keeping food properly sealed may not be enough ... READ MORE
Category: Florida-Friendly Landscaping, Home Landscapes, UF/IFAS, UF/IFAS Extension, Work & Life