Tree Damsel Bug Stats!

 

Damsel bugs have soft, slender bodies that may be brown, gray, yellowish, reddish brown, or tan. Adults are 3/8- to 1/2-inch long. They have long legs and long antennae, and may be confused with equally beneficial assassin bugs. Like assassin bugs, some damsel bugs can and will bite. They are, after all, predators. Medically speaking, as far as I know, damsel bug bites are harmless.

Like lady beetles and praying mantis, damsel bugs are generalists. This means they will eat whatever they can hold onto long enough to eat. Very often, those meals are aphids, armyworms, small caterpillars and caterpillar eggs, fleahoppers, leafhoppers, lygus bugs, mites, proba bugs, spider mites, and thrips. (Hooray for damsel bugs!) Of course, they will also eat beneficial big-eyed bugs and minute pirate bugs, and occasionally they will even eat plants, but their net result to the garden is still very positive.