The Barber Shop

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This was a big surprise. Thanks to everyone that voted.

Five insects in the garden that look like pests and aren't. Every one of them is a predator hunting the actual pests.

The jumping spider on the leaf — small, fuzzy, two oversized eyes tracking your hand. No web. She stalks and pounces on aphids and flies in daylight.

🌿 The one most people get wrong: the spined soldier bug looks almost identical to the brown stink bug eating your tomatoes. Same shape, same color. But the shoulders end in sharp points, not smooth curves. She's the predatory version — spearing caterpillars and beetle larvae with a needle-like beak. Check the shoulders before you decide.

The bristly gray fly that looks like a housefly is a tachinid. She lays eggs on pest caterpillars and squash bugs. The larvae finish the host from inside.

The dark flat larva in the soil and leaf litter — nobody recognizes her until she glows. Firefly larvae spend a year or two underground hunting slugs and snails before they ever light up the yard.

The wolf spider under the pot hunts by sight after dark. Crickets, roaches, beetles — run down without a web.

Five predators. Five disguises. All of them already there 🐾

Pick up at Barbershop Loretto

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