Growing With Science Blog

Aphids make most gardeners cringe, but if you look deeply, they are actually quite fascinating.

Take these aphids on a sunflower. You might not be able to see it in this lower resolution version, but I found an aphid giving birth, an aphid with a baby on its back and a winged aphid in this photograph.

Do you see the tiny wasp? She is laying her eggs in aphids, which will cause the aphids to turn into mummies.

In this view you can see some of them have their mouthparts stuck into the plant. What’s that silvery thing?

Although many people mistake theses insects for honey bees, this one is actually a fly. In fact it is a flower or hover fly, genus Eristalis.

Why is it here? The adult fly may have been feeding on nectar and pollen from the flower or it may have been drinking honeydew left behind by the aphids. It also may have been up to no good as far as the aphids are concerned, because it may have been laying eggs nearby. The larvae of many types of flower flies are predators of aphids.

So many little dramas right under our noses.

Aphids are actually cool insects.

Look at the way the light passes through their antennae and the “tailpipes” on their back ends, which are technically called cornicles.

But most aphids are cool insects in another way, too. They like cool weather. As soon as it gets relatively warm here in Arizona, they are gone.

In fact that one with wings, called an alate, is probably getting ready to go. Can you see the “tube” it uses to suck juices from the flower bud? That’s called a proboscis.

When aphids arrive where you live, see what you can discover from looking at them closely. Let us know what you find out.

A drawing of an aphid to look at and color

Aphids are typically active only during the cool part of the spring season in Arizona, so now is when we see aphids.

Every wonder how aphids show up? After all, it looks like they don’t have wings.

These are rose aphids. Aren’t they a lovely pink color? By the way, the long tubes on their backs are called cornicles. Aphids emit chemicals from the cornicles. Some of the chemicals alert other aphids of danger (alarm pheromones) and/or actually deter enemies (defensive compounds).

The first aphids to arrive on your plants do have wings, like this one. They aren’t strong fliers and mostly they are carried in the wind.

The winged ones quickly have live babies.  Unlike most insects, these aphids do not lay eggs during this part of the life cycle.

I’ve circled the baby aphids in this photo.

I’m not worried about seeing these aphids. Even if I do nothing at all, they will disappear as the weather warms up.

For more information, try:

Cicadas and Aphids: What They Have in Common (Animals in Order Series) by Sara Swan Miller

Aphids (Blastoff! Readers: World of Insects) by Colleen Sexton
This one is pretty new and I haven’t seen it yet.