aphid eating monsters

[petitvilaincanard]

I had a big aphid problem at the end of the winter in the greenhouse on the peppers and tomatoes as allways in winter.
In the garden aphids never seem to be a problem,only on the favas they develop sometimes somewhat,but never to point that there is serious loss because of this beasties.

I know there are several predators of aphids and the coccinelles (the famous red with black spots scarabe) is just one of them and I estimate not the most important one.

10days ago the wheater was relatively hot and I put the peppers and the tomatoes outside to have some more sun and fresh air.And I hoped something would happen with the aphids that crowded on many plants.

Ther were quite some syrphes visiting the plant with movements that could be interpreted as posing eggs but this seemed to be to nice to be tru to me.

Syrphes are flys that can look like this(but other colored species exist too)
It was not me that took this photo I found in wikipedia but they looked a bit like this.



After this weather was not so good again and I took the plants in again.
A few days ago I noticed that some plants that were crowded with aphids before were aphid free now.
I found some of this little monsters mouving around on the plants.They swing their body frenetic to the left and to the right scanning all the surfface of the leaves and indeed I saw one finding an aphid and eating it.
Wow these monsters are incredibly efffecient!

I tried to take some photos

[mnjrutherford]

Fascinating! That what you call a "scarab" we call "ladybug". The larvae of the ladybug is similar in appearance to this animal... not in coloration, but shape, texture, and what appears to be a whitish stripe across one end... Any you say that is a fly? Can you link the Wiki page? Because I've been seeing a similar animal, about 1" long flying about. Because of the coloration I guessed it to be a HUGE yellow jacket (a common type of wasp in the U.S.). I would be thrilled to have some help in the aphid wars as ladybugs are the only ones to be had to date...

[steev]

Those are Syrphid Fly larvae; like ladybug larvae, they are voracious predators of aphids. The adults are often called "Hoverflies", due to their flight characteristics, much like hummingbirds or dragonflies.

[raymondo]

I've seen lots of the adult flies in the garden but never noticed their larvae. Now I know what they look like (thanks for the photos petitvilaincanard) I'll keep an eye out for them.

[Gianna]

The Syrphid Fly larvae we get in my area are green in color. They appear similar to little green 'worms' but they have a pointed end unlike a leaf-eating worm.

One of the biggest eaters of aphids here are lizards. I've often seen them in the tops of the kale where there had been ugly gray aphids. The lizards also chow down on cucumber beetles.

I also often get little tree frogs that often live in the moist lettuce. I assume they eat aphids as well.

[ottawagardener]

Neat pictures. Thanks.