Sunday, August 12, 2012

Blister Beetles

 

Well after finding out from Adrienne from “Adrienne in Ohio” that my veracious beetles were Blister Beetles I am glad I showed the little monsters no mercy.

Blister_Beetles

  And I am especially thankful that I did not try to hand pick them. Not that I would have been able to catch these beetles on steroids.
Blister Beetles secrete an irritant that begins to irritate the skin within a few hours which can cause blisters to appear. Ekk!
No thank you I will not mess with these little terrors again but kill them every time.

blisterBeetle_Irritations
Picture courtesy of Yahoo images.

So if you have them shredding anything in you garden. Do not hand pick them or touch them. Kill them!! If you do hand pick them wear gloves but good luck in trying to catch them.
I just had too many at one time to handle them any other way that spraying them.

blister-beetle-bites-1.1-800x800
This was the result of smashing one on the back of the neck.

Besides my Anemones leaves that they love they also love Alfalfa.There are many cases of deaths of valuable horses in Florida that ingested alfalfa that contained blister beetles in the hay. Fatal deaths have been reported in horses more so than in cattle and sheep.
The Blister Beetles are found all over the United States, Canada and the West Indies.

Blister_Beetles2

Blister beetles are thin, elongated insects with large heads. They can be various colors from black to metallic and are about 1/2 to 1-inch in length. These insects are easy to identify because of their elongated necks.
There are over 2,500 species of Blister Beetles and they  come in different colors but the shape of them are all the same like those in my pictures with the large heads which can be red in some of them..
Thank you Adrienne for the identification of these nasty beetles.

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16 comments:

Arek C said...

Rany na skórze wyglądają bardzo nieprzyjemnie. I like your blog and have subscribed from previous year. Greetings from Poland

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

Those buggers are nasty!!! Glad you got it IDed and steer clear of them. Those blisters look miserable.

Gardener on Sherlock Street said...

Wow. What nasty little bugs. Thankcs for the info. Always good to know what to keep an eye out for. Hope you got 'em all!

Unknown said...

Holy Mackerel! No more Mr nice guy for sure! Very interesting post with a little note of take care! LOL! LT

Patsy said...

That is terrible. Bad bugs to have. My garden looks so unhappy. The grasshoppers are eating it up.

Nadezda said...

Lona, fortunately you didn't hand pick them! They really are little terror.

Carla said...

Oh my, I think we have some of those on my Poha plant. I will take a closer look! I don't think they are but I sure don't want them if they do that to your skin.

Thank you for posting this information.

Take care!

gardeningnaturallywithclaudia.blogspot.com said...

Thanks for the heads up! I learned something new today. Icks!

Splendid Little Stars said...

Yes, thanks to Adrienne! How awful!
I will pay special attention if I see anything remotely like this!

Anonymous said...

It makes me wonder why do we even have certain bugs. I mean, I like to think that everything has some sort of purpose -- but what could be the purpose of a blister beetle? Thanks for the info!

Friend of HK said...

They look quite cute but actually quite nasty. I hope you recover soon.

Kukkaiselämää said...

Terrible beetles! I'm happy we don't have those in Finland. Twenty years ago when I was having my vacation in Cypern, some insict bited me and I got rheumatics because of the inflammation. So beetles and insicts aren't quite harmless!

Gatsbys Gardens said...

Glad you found out what they are. They are nasty!

Eileen

Balisha said...

OMG! Looks like a monster bug to me. Just look at the blisters they caused. Maybe you should wear a suit of armor to do your gardening.I checked my anemones and haven't found one.
Balisha

RURAL said...

Amazingly nasty....glad that you did spray for them.

Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

debsgarden said...

Thanks for the info; those blisters look terrible! I will be on the outlook!