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They’ve Hatched

June 16th, 2011

Remember those pearly insect eggs I showed you on Sunday?

I checked on them on Tuesday evening and they had hatched. It looks like they are leaf footed insect nymphs just as I thought. The tiny little insects are just as beautiful as the eggs were, stunningly bright red.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of these little guys in my garden before. I probably have just never stopped long enough or been in the right place at the right time to see them.

I grew up in South America so I’ve seen my share of crazy insects. Yet nature never ceases to amaze me, especially when it comes to the insect world!

What’s the craziest insect or animal you’ve spotted in your garden?

20 Comments to “They’ve Hatched”
  1. Jennifer Fisk on June 16, 2011 at 6:47 am

    They look like Lilly Leaf Beetles. You didn’t mention them meeting their demise but they need to. I’m sure by now you’ve looked for more.

    Reply to Jennifer Fisk's comment

    • Susy on June 16, 2011 at 7:31 am

      Nope, they were allowed to live. I don’t usually kill any insects as even the “pests” feed beneficials and I’d be taking away meals from birds and other insects if I killed them.

      Reply to Susy's comment

      • Seren Dippity on June 17, 2011 at 1:23 am

        Do you feel the same way about bugs that eat you? I’ve never met a chigger that I would want to live even if it disrupted some creature’s dinner. I can’t even find anything that eats chiggers…. wish I could.

        to Seren Dippity's comment

      • Susy on June 17, 2011 at 8:23 am

        Yes, I do actually. Mr Chiots is always bemoaning the mosquitos – but if we didn’t have them we wouldn’t have bats and a lot of other birds. I’ve had some pretty nasty cases of chiggers before. But I don’t begrudge them their nature. I haven’t researched them, but I’m sure they’re beneficial in their own way and have a purpose for being around.

        to Susy's comment

  2. Kelly on June 16, 2011 at 9:03 am

    Wow, I never would have guessed that beautiful red bugs would come from those gorgeous eggs! It’s awesome how much beauty and art is in nature if we take the time to slow down and take a “closer” look! Thanks for reminding us with your lovely photos.
    I recently picked a dandelion and noticed a tiny white fluffy bug on it. I showed it to my girls and they named it “squirrel bug”, because it had a long furry tail. It was actually really cute! (I later looked it up and found out that it is called a woolly aphid.)

    Reply to Kelly's comment

  3. Rhonda on June 16, 2011 at 9:09 am

    Well, the animal that’s in my garden right now isn’t unusual but it sure is gutsy! I have a mamma rabbit who made a little nest right smack dab in my lettuce! She’s been there a couple of weeks now and at first I was really mad because I just knew she’d be eating everything up but so far she hasn’t eaten anything. The nest is well hidden under the leaves (rouge d’ hiver) and you’d have to lift up the leaves to even see it. She only goes to the nest a couple of times a day. She spends the rest of the day hanging out under my kids’ sliding board. Evidently she feels very safe here because she actually stretches out and sleeps under there! Like I said, at first I was mad, but now she’s kind of become part of the family so she’s welcome to stay. :-)

    Reply to Rhonda's comment

    • Susy on June 16, 2011 at 9:13 am

      That’s one smart rabbit – she knows where to build a nest, right in the food patch! My mom had a rabbit build a nest right by the fence to her dog kennel. At first she was worried that the dogs would kill the babies, but then the dogs decided that they were my mom’s “pets” and protected them from the neighborhood cats. I think they got one that wandered into the kennel and just licked it until my mom put it back in the nest. That’s pretty good for coon hounds!

      Reply to Susy's comment

      • Rhonda on June 16, 2011 at 3:46 pm

        That is so sweet!

        to Rhonda's comment

  4. SixBalloons on June 16, 2011 at 10:43 am

    I’m fascinated by their vivid colour!

    Reply to SixBalloons's comment

  5. Gabe on June 16, 2011 at 11:24 am

    Wow, those are impressive! I saw a similar cluster of eggs last night and it made me think of your earlier post. They looked slightly different, but I’ll be sure to check them out again for the next couple days to see what emerges.

    Reply to Gabe's comment

  6. MAYBELLINE on June 16, 2011 at 11:35 am

    What the heck are to devil bugs?
    I believe the craziest animal I ever discovered in my garden was an opossum. Never saw one before or since.

    Reply to MAYBELLINE's comment

  7. Herb Bennet on June 16, 2011 at 2:46 pm

    Until I put the little picket fence up everything was going through my garden. But the rarest is the bobcat family that lives in the marsh beyond the property. I live in East Central Florida and the storks and pelicans and the herons and the cranes and the egrets and the ibis and the . . .

    Reply to Herb Bennet's comment

  8. K.B. on June 16, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    Wow – amazing!! What incredible colour :)

    The craziest animal has got to be the baby snapping turtle. Most animals are welcome, but that little one got quickly relocated back to the pond at the end of the side street!

    Reply to K.B.'s comment

  9. Lelo on June 16, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    Really pretty! I love finding beautiful bugs too. I have two for you….this morning I got in my car and had a big smear of what looked like snot across my pant legs. I had brushed against a spit bug covered leaf on the way to my car. Gross. The second….my parents have trapped armadillos in their Texas garden: those things are crazy weird! And diggers!

    Reply to Lelo's comment

  10. Sincerely, Emily on June 16, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    Nothing super crazy in the garden. Lots and lots of harlequin bugs this year. It will be coming else in the fall and again something else next year. I do like checking out eggs to see what they are. The eggs can be so amazingly beautiful, like you little golden pearl droplets. Your little hatchlings look a bit like the assign bug – one of the good guys. They have a red/orange body & usually with black legs. Here is a link to photos.
    http://www.google.com/search?q=assassin+bug&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=mJh&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1662&bih=875&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=xo36TYiSNYuCtge4hfy5Dg&ved=0CCAQsAQ

    Reply to Sincerely, Emily's comment

  11. Norma on June 16, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    Wow, those bugs are beautiful and I’m so glad you didn’t dispatch them…I’ve seen many eggs of different colours hatch into beetles, but what comes to mind are,
    -progressionary catarpillars nose to tail, over 2 metres long
    -an ant colony moving their queen along a very long road of ants, and when she got passed the mass looked like a golf ball moving along a black rope
    -pray mantis egg nest hatching in my kitchen, with hundreds of babies running everywhere….did get them all to the garden:)
    -locusts plague and to see them elongate their bodies when egg laying
    -snail eggs, wow look like pearls
    oooh I could go on, but your a gardener…..I just am always amazed by nature.

    Reply to Norma's comment

    • Susy on June 17, 2011 at 8:24 am

      No dispatching of any insects here, except for the occasionally mosquito that’s biting me. And I even try to avoid that as they all have a purpose – even the baddies.

      Reply to Susy's comment

  12. Carlie on June 22, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    Stunning! I never would have imagined that those gorgeous creatures could come out of those little eggs! I thought the eggs were beautiful but I hadn’t seen anything yet.

    Reply to Carlie's comment

  13. Debbie on June 24, 2011 at 8:13 pm

    I’d just come back here Susy to see if you’d found out what creature those eggs belonged to. It’s funny, the day or so after I’d read that post…I’d found them in my garden too. I noticed them immediately because of your post – so thank you for that. And thank you for identifying them. I tried to but came up short. I can always rely on you. xo

    Reply to Debbie's comment

  14. […] footed insect eggs, but I’m not positive. I’ll definitely spend some time looking these up. (here’s the post with the images of what hatched out of these lovely […]

    Reply to Quote of the Day: Christy Bartlett | Chiot’s Run's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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