Gardening this weekend, my wife and I found a bunch of these little devils lurking in the soil.
First off, it didn't like being on its stomach. When I turned it onto its belly, it would angrily roll over and try to scoot off to safety, undulating on its back. It has a top speed of 5" per 10 seconds or 0.0284 MPH. It was also quite an unpleasant character, snapping its mandibles at me with undisguised ferocity. Clicking around the Interweb Tubes, it looks to me to be the larva of either a June Beetle or a Japanese Beetle. Whatever they were, we carefully combed through the soil, trying to get every last one.
Horrid things. I don't like them, not one little bit.
7 comments:
I've had them too.
There's a powder you can buy called Milky Spore that you sprinkle in the garden and it kills them. It's completely harmless to other creatures and plants.
fire. burn them with fire.
Yep, most likely june beetles. The legs and breathing spiracles don't look right for japanese beetles.
I hear that if you fry them up, they have a buttery, walnut-like flavor.
So that's two votes for fire and one vote for poison. Excellent!
Well, technically Milky Spore is a disease, not a poison, but the effect is the same.
Got it. So it's two votes for fire and one for biological warfare. By the way, thanks for the ID. I really appreciate that, Tim.
It also looks like a June bug grub to me. I haven't used it myself, but I understand that the Milky Spore disease is the way to go.
Getting rid of these grubs is the best way to get rid of moles, since the moles are grubbing after the insects.
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