What happens when you send an entomologist to visit a rose garden?
There will be some photographs of roses, of course.
But not only roses.
There will be even more photographs of insects.
Isn’t the contrast between the dark red rose and the light green aphids striking?
If there are aphids, there will be lady beetles.The adult in this photograph is a convergent lady beetle.
And lady beetle larvae. This one is an ashy gray lady beetle larva. It is searching for aphids to eat.
 The larvae of the green lacewings also eat aphids.
This green lacewing egg looks like it might already have hatched.
The fly might have been attracted by the aphids, as well. Flies will eat the honeydew the aphids release.
The assassin bug was probably interested in the bigger insects, like the fly.
Butterflies visit roses, too.
So, yes an entomologist will spend more time looking at insects, but he or she just might enjoy the roses, too.
What about you?
Roses and insects provided by the rose garden at Mesa Community College.
