Q. This bug, which I don’t recall ever seeing in my 30+ years of gardening in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, was all over my tomato plants this past summer. My questions are: What is it and ...

Alias: An invasive leaf-footed bug. The name it is most often referred to by its abbreviated scientific name, C. volxemi, as it has no formal common name. It is a small brown insect just shorter than ...

DEAR NEIL: These insects have appeared on our green tomatoes. We’ve never seen them before. What should we do? Dear Reader: These are immature leaf-footed bugs (Leptoglossus phyllopus), close ...

A: These are immature leaf-footed bugs (Leptoglossus pyllopus), close relatives to stinkbugs. They have similar piercing mouthparts. They will suck the fluids out of your ripening tomatoes and cause ...

Q: We have 30-year-old Rhaphiolepis indica planted in a slightly raised planter. One side was particularly hit hard by the freeze a few years ago (17 degrees in Tucson in February), or so we thought, ...

Question: We have tiny black gnat-like bugs flying around the house. They seem to live in the dirt of my plants and though they don’t bite, they annoy us endlessly. I put the plants outside to see if ...

This is a preview. Log in through your library . Abstract Sacrificing body parts is one of many behaviors that animals use to escape predation. This trait, termed autotomy, is classically associated ...