You might have wondered what are these colorful orange and black bugs. They are most often seen clustered in large groups on milkweed plant seed pods.
They are Large Milkweed Bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus). They are two species of Milkweed Bugs, one smaller than the other. The Small Milkweed Bugs (lygaeus kalmii) are between 1/8 – 1/2″ (11-12 mm) long. The Large Milkweed Bug is 1/2 -3/4″ (13 – 18mm) long.
I saw these Large Milkweed Bugs on the Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) in my garden. I noticed tiny yellowish-orange larvae (or eggs?) on the tops of immature Butterfly Weed seed pods. I can never tell if the orange specks are eggs or tiny, tiny larvae.
I am always passing the Butterfly Weed as I go to and from my car. I keep forgetting to take a hand lens and take a close look at the little orange dots. I can never figure out what they are doing.
I couldn’t figure out what the doing except sucking the plant juices of the immature seed pods. I thought they just sucked the juices out of seeds when the pods opened. Why are they on the green immature pods.
The orange and black coloring of the bugs makes it easy to spot among the green foliage. Some hungry birds or predatory insects could easily make a meal of the large cluster of bugs.
But then I thought, the breeding season is over. There aren’t any hungry chicks to feed. And most of the songbirds have started there southward migration. The year-round resident birds like woodpeckers hunt among the tree bark, not on flowers.
Even the Chinese Mantid (Tenodera sinensis) that lurks in my garden have left these large insects alone. I notice the mantids were about twenty feet away from the Milkweed Bugs. I had seen the Mantid in the same flowerbed as the bugs, just at the opposite end. The Chinese Mantid was introduced here in the Philadelphia area in 1896, by the way.
Feeding on the Milkweed means the bug is probably bitter tasting. The latex in milkweed plants transfers the bitter taste to the animals that feed on them. The latex is a milky substance containing cardiac glycosides termed cardenolides, seep out where cells are damaged. This latex is the source of the bitter taste of Monarch butterfly larva and adults. And birds don’t bother catching Monarchs.
It’s interesting how both Large Milkweed Bugs and Monarch butterflies have the same orange and black coloration. And milkweed is the host plant for both insects. I wonder if this phenomenon is by design or coincidence?
Both the Large and Small Milkweed Bugs are seed bugs. Seed bugs (family Lygaeidae) are a diverse group of mostly plant-eating bugs. Seed bugs don’t harm the plant, they suck the seeds and sap. A few seed bugs are predatory. But I don’t see any chewed seeds in the open Butterfly Weed Pods.
Watching these bugs raises many questions for me.
I wonder why they show up before the milkweed seed pods are formed?
I want to know what they are feeding on before the seed pods mature and split open providing access to the seeds. Maybe it’s secreted plant latex.
I notice the bugs are at the bottom of the plant in the early morning. They must climb the plant as the day warms and drop off to spend the night in the ground, under leaves or something else.
Where and when do the Milkweed Bugs lay their eggs? Are the tiny orange things eggs or larvae or both?
Species Profile
Large Milkweed Bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus)
Family: Lygaeidae – seed bugs
Size: 1/2 – 3/4″ (13 – 18 mm)
Range: Southeastern Canada throughout the United States and into South America
Elevation: found from mid to low elevations
Active: from spring through fall
Where to Find: adults and larvae can be found on milkweed plants, feeding in dense groups
A Good Scientific Nature Journal Project
Next year I will just have to study the Milkweed Bugs. I have too many questions to not do anything.
Are these bugs harmful? I have been using an organic aphid spray to keep my plants from being destroyed. It is quite a challenge to tell what is healthier, the plants with bugs or without?
Hi Elizabeth- thanks for the question. These bugs are Seed bugs. They don’t harm the plant, they suck the seeds and sap. A few seed bugs are predatory. I haven’t seen any real damage by these bugs. There are many insects that feed on plants but not kill the plant. I doubt they’ll harm your plants. I would watch them and learn their place in the ecosystem.
I have always enjoyed plucking off a dried milkweed pod in late summer and liberating them during a windy day. The child in me would come through watching the wind carry them high and far. My hope was for more milkweed to become established elsewhere, and with those; more Monarchs. Then one year I noticed that all of the seeds were destroyed in every pod I came across. Talk about disappointment. I’ve seen the milkweed bugs plenty of time; however, I had not realized that they were the culprit until I read about them. I’ve read of one gardener who covers their milkweed seed pods with homemade “socks” fashioned from fine netting. I would imagine that something like Tulle fabric would work well to keep those critter out of the pods.
Hi Mark – I was fascinated by the Milkweed pods, too. Still scatter plant seeds around. I would like create Seedbombs like Josie Jeffrey does in her book, SeedBombs: Going Wild with Flowers.
Hey Donna. I enjoyed your article and the questions you raised. I actually wrote a poem last year about the how the milkweed bugs and monarchs share colors. I do wonder if theres an explanation other than coincidence.
Hi Alex, We see the same color combinations over and over in the natural world. It probably has some significance we may never know.
Those little orange things look like Oleander Aphids. The ladybugs eat them
Hi, Alison – They maybe. They are definitely a type of aphid. The aphids did disappear quickly after I saw them. I do have ladybug larva and adults in my garden.