Since I posted about the unknown bug some days ago, I’ve been killing them when I saw them, and every day they changed shape and color a little. Yesterday, I tracked down the last one, and it finally was mature enough to give me an idea of what it might look like as an adult. I now know what they were, and I am glad to have been killing them. They were Leaf Footed Bugs.

I don’t know for certain which kind of Leaf Footed Bugs they were, as the last one to be spotted was smashed into oblivion before I really looked at it too closely. The immature stage I posted photos of in my last post look most like Leptoglossus phyllopus. They are plant eaters and they bite people and they all stink (literally), so I am now glad I killed them. I always worry I am killing something beneficial, but my theory is better safe than sorry, and if something seems too interested in the fruit of my plants, chances are high they aren’t beneficial. So far, I haven’t murdered any beneficial bugs.

I also have a theory that really ugly bugs are never beneficial. That theory probably doesn’t hold true in reality, but in my back yard it has, so far. These things are (were) really ugly. Hopefully, I won’t be seeing any more of them.