Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Help! There's an Assassin in my Kitchen!

The weather here is frightful so I was spending a quiet afternoon messing with plants.  I went to pot up a couple of cuttings I had started on the kitchen windowsill and found...  Drumroll please...  An Assassin!

Well, an Assassin bug (family Reduviidae).


Isn't he a little beauty!  Assassin bugs are very welcome in my garden but in my kitchen?  And what do I do with him?  There's about 3 feet of snow on the ground, he's not going to be able to find food and shelter at this time of the year!  So he can't go outside where he belongs.  Should I catch him up, stick him in an unused aquarium and try to feed him crickets and mealworms?  What if this species is a specialist?  Some of them are.  In fact some specialize on cockroaches. 

I hope this isn't a sign of a cockroach infestation. 

What is it even doing alive in February?  Most assassin bugs are dormant as eggs over the winter.  I see small assassin bugs early in the spring and summer but the adults I see in the late summer and fall. 

I guess all Assassins should be mysterious and this fellow surely is!  I think I'll name him Bob Dillon.  No, not after THAT Bob Dillon, after THIS one.  And I'll have to re-read Pest Control (by Bill Fitzhugh) again.  

Oh, and all of ya'll complaining about winter?  This bird feeder support is over 6 foot tall.  Imagine how much fun I have digging out a path to refill it. 

I'm officially over winters in New England.  How long until Spring?

1 comment:

  1. We had these guys all over the house early this winter. I officially got tired of them when I found one in my bed.

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