My son shouted, “It’s a Stink bug! I am going to smash it!”

“Wait! Let mama look at it, it might be a good bug,” said my husband.

For a gardener, my husband has an unhealthy aversion to bugs. He lets me make the good bug or bad bug call.   I put down my shovel to look at the bug.  My son pointed to a leaf on the sunflower plant growing out of our compost bin and declared, “There it is!”

The insect had a colorful body and long antennae.  It did not look like a Stink bug.  Its legs were too long and graceful.  It scuttled so fast around the leaves that I barely caught its image in my camera.   We let it be.  The next day,  I sent its photo to the Home and Garden Center at the Maryland Agricultural Extension. Within a few hours, I received the bug’s identity.   It is an Assassin bug nymph!

We are thrilled to have such a voracious predator in our garden plot.  This bug will help rid our garden of: aphids, Colorado potato beetles, cucumber beetles, Japanese beetles, Mexican bean beetles, tomato hornworms and many more pests.  I am glad we did not squash it!