Up close with a couple insects on my tomato leaves tonight

[squirrel789]

Hello,

My wife bought me a little Carson pocket microscope online the other day. It was only like $15 - so it's nothing professional or fancy but it goes from 60X to 120X and the LED is quite bright, and the detail you can see if pretty amazing for such a little instrument. I finally had a chance to play around with it for the first time tonight.

I caught a couple of the tiny, black things I've been seeing on the underside of my leaves the past couple of nights when I went pest hunting. They usually move/fly away quite quickly, but I caught a couple using a little glass jar which I covered briefly with a paper towel dampened with a little isopropyl alcohol. It slowed them down, permanently

I got to look at them up close and thought it might be fun to try to take some pictures.

Just thought I'd share them in case anyone was interested or wanted to help ID them.

I think the first might be a thrip of some kind or maybe a winged aphid? I've only seen the little green aphids in my garden before. The other seems like maybe a small fungus gnat or a fruit fly (it just looked like a speck). Honestly, I'm not really sure exactly what they are though. The one next to my finger (for scale) is the insect I think might be a thrip. I was wearing disposable gloves, which why my finger looks so weird

I found it really interesting to check out all the tiny specks on my leaves and see what they really are. I would never have guessed how many different things I'd see, and even just the leaf structures were pretty cool to look at up close. I saw a lot of fascinating things, but mostly desiccated or crystallized dead bugs since I sprayed with some Safer soap spray the night before, and of course these couple of black insects I caught. I didn't bother with the aphids because, well, I just wanted to rid of those little suckers immediately. I only took a few pics tonight, but will take more if I find something interesting. They aren't as clear as when actually looking through the microscope, but they were just taken with a camera phone.

Anyway, for what it's worth, I thought I'd share a few of the pics that turned out the best. Thanks for checking them out.

[ginger2778]

I don't know, but those pictures are really cool.

[bower]

Wow these pix are amazing! Sign me up to see more, squirrel! I hope someone can ID the suspects.

[kayrobbins]

That looks like it might be a Big-eyed bug. If it is, it is one of the good guys that eat aphids, thrips, whiteflies and more. The reason I think it might be it that it does have the big wide apart eyes, the lcear wings and the mouth parts. They use that to stab their their prey and suck out their guts. I hope some one that really knows more sees these pictures so we find out.

[DonnaMarieNJ]

Excellent pics!!!

[BigVanVader]

Wow so cool, and for 15$! Headed to amazon to get one, would be a good educational tool for my son and I.

[squirrel789]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

Wow so cool, and for 15$! Headed to amazon to get one, would be a good educational tool for my son and I.

I was surprised too using just the little scope and a phone cam. If you're interested, it's called a Carson Microbrite, and I saw it on sale for like $13 and change this morning on that site you mentioned. It takes a AA battery (not included of course), it's pretty easy to focus, and I've had fun playing with it so far. Getting used to how to move it around takes a little getting used to, but it makes sense after you think about it (to see what's to the right of what you're looking at, you move the scope to the left).

I hope I did't kill any of the good guys, but it's helpful knowing what's out there at least. I've not been able to positively ID them by searching for some common things on G@@gle Images

I'll take some more pics when I get a chance (and it stops raining AGAIN). Thanks for all the positive replies!

[bower]

squirrel789, I wonder if you can tell if the second beastie pictured has two wings or four?

I wonder because in the second pic of it, you can see there are more than 10 segments on the antennae, and that's typical of the beneficial wasps - could be a tiny braconid. If so it should have two pairs of wings and they 're just overlapped.

If it has only one pair of wings then I think something similar to a fungus gnat - those do have longer antennae than most flies.

Was looking through the ol Peterson Field Guide during lunch...

[squirrel789]

Originally Posted by bower

squirrel789, I wonder if you can tell if the second beastie pictured has two wings or four?

Hi Bower!

I have to scale down the pics to post them, but on even the higher res ones and the similar ones I didn't post, I can only see a single pair (the critter itself is long gone).

Those small leaf shapes structures behind the wings kind of remind me of pictures of some cordyceps fungi I've seen on flying insects, but I'm sure it isn't. The little dot on the head isn't a glare or anything either, it looked like it had been pierced or bitten by something. Weird, I think I now have yet another time-sink on my hands, looking at specks from the garden under this thing

Thanks again for your responses, I'm glad you folks are finding this as interesting as I do.

[pauldavid]

Neat! They look fierce when magnified!

[bower]

Originally Posted by squirrel789

Hi Bower!

I have to scale down the pics to post them, but on even the higher res ones and the similar ones I didn't post, I can only see a single pair (the critter itself is long gone).

Those small leaf shapes structures behind the wings kind of remind me of pictures of some cordyceps fungi I've seen on flying insects, but I'm sure it isn't. The little dot on the head isn't a glare or anything either, it looked like it had been pierced or bitten by something. Weird, I think I now have yet another time-sink on my hands, looking at specks from the garden under this thing

Thanks again for your responses, I'm glad you folks are finding this as interesting as I do.

A little bite eh? It's like that poem..
"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum..." Augustus de Morgan
Flies and gnats both have just one set of wings. Flies have 3 segment antennae but gnats have many segment antennae.. so I believe it is in the family of gnats.

[squirrel789]

Originally Posted by bower

A little bite eh? It's like that poem..
"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum..." Augustus de Morgan
Flies and gnats both have just one set of wings. Flies have 3 segment antennae but gnats have many segment antennae.. so I believe it is in the family of gnats.

You're right, they do appear to be gnats.

After learning more around the web and in an old insect field guide I dug out from a box of books at a garage sale, I think they are both fungus gnats. There is wide variety of body shapes/types that seem to all fall under this general name.

I went out again last night, as we finally caught a break in the rain, and took a few more pics to share. Again, I was great fun checking what I found, even if they are relatively commonplace insects. I am realizing that a tomato plant is like a huge (but tiny) battlefield where everyone is eating or laying eggs in everyone or everything else, which unfortunately also includes the plant and fruit. While I knew this already, It's still fascinating to see the diversity of stuff that appears to be going on and how different the little specks I try to squish really are.

I like that there's such diversity, even among fungus gnats apparently. I also think it's fun to see evidence of what things have been up to in the garden (like seeing pollen or maybe eggs stuck to their bodies). I'm not claiming to have discovered a new species, or anything. However, I thought some might find it interesting. I made some very slightly educated guesses about what they are. I am certainly NOT an expert, or even vaguely knowledgeable in this area, so I'd love to hear what anyone has to say!

I think the the first set of pics are a thrip, it was too long to fit the whole body in 1 pic even zoomed all the way out, and the last one is focused on the mouth parts on the underside. Only the left side appeared to be moving. It was still alive but sedated and moving slowly, so I have an interesting video, but not sure if/how I can post that (I think I might actually be right about it being a thrip this time; in my first post I tried to pin that name on a fungus gnat) .
Edit: I put a pic for scale at the end of the post.


Next comes some type of spider that are all over my tomato branches, which is great! I am not usually fond of spiders, but when they are eating tomato pests I'll gladly make an exception. This is a particularly tiny one I accidentally caught while collecting some suspicious-looking web strands on a leaf to check for spider mites. It held still long enough to take a couple pics and then I tossed him back into the garden unharmed.

Then I found what I am guessing to be an adult winged aphid (I would have squished it immediately and not bothered catching it if I'd known it was an aphid). This one looked different than what I usually I see, which I'm guessing means there are few winged adults in the garden (also probably a good thing). Maybe they just usually fly away before I see them, not sure.

Not included were the fungal gnats, and all the aphids that looked like they had been "sucked dry"(actually I included one pic). They were shriveled, distorted, and mostly colorless. Those red eyes kind of give it away I think. Honestly, these are all just guesses, but it does make me want to learn more. After the first night I looked at these beasts, it also made me jump online and order a bottle of insecticidal soap concentrate and a good pump sprayer

Thanks for checking out the pics!

[JamesL]

That is very cool. Thanks for sharing the pics!

[bower]

Nice.. you have such a close up of these little guys!

I have an unknown pest.. tiny pest, been looking at them with a hand lens (and my glasses on!) but I haven't a clue what they are. I put an infested leaf with grubs on it in a bag a couple of days ago, and they had enough air I guess to hatch, because now I have some 'specimens' to look at more closely... sure wish I had your handy scope!