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Photo#1467927
Larva hanging out with aphids

Larva hanging out with aphids
Haydenville, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, USA
October 26, 2017
Size: roughly 2 mm
I found this larva among the aphids (identified as Aphis craccivora by Natalie Hernandez) on scarlet runner beans in photos 1461878 and 1461881:

Photo#1461878

It reached around with what I assume was its head quite a bit, but it didn't leave that position on the plant for two days (at least not while I was watching). On the second day that I visited these aphids, it had stopped moving around, and I thought it might be preparing to pupate. On the third day, it had either moved a few millimeters away, or it had left (or been removed) and a second (active) larva appeared a few millimeters away.

I found one aphid mummy with an exit hole and others that appeared to have been parasitized by wasps, so I was guessing that this was the larva of a parasitoid, but from poking around on the web, it looks like the parasitoids emerge as adults. Do they ever leave their hosts as larvae?

Images of this individual: tag all
Larva hanging out with aphids Larva hanging out with aphids Larva hanging out with aphids

Moved

Possibly a predatory cecidomyiid
such as Aphidoletes sp. -- here's a 'mini-gallery' of some similar finds on BG:


Moved
Moved from ID Request.

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