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Photo#53623
Taking flight - Hamamelistes spinosus

Taking flight - Hamamelistes spinosus
Fairfield, Wayne County, Illinois, USA
May 21, 2006
Doing my daily rounds of bug places in my yard and saw things moving in the "scale colony". Do scale insects have a winged phase or is this something else?

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Scale insect based community - Hamamelistes spinosus Scale insect based community - Hamamelistes spinosus Scale insect based community - Hamamelistes spinosus Taking flight - Hamamelistes spinosus Scale insect based community - Hamamelistes spinosus

Moved

Moved
Moved from Woolly Aphids.

Woolly Aphids?
I suspect these are woolly aphids. Knowing the host plant (tree?) would go a long way toward helping the ID. Oh, and yes, male scale insects are often winged, if there ARE males in a given species or population:-) They are even more minute than aphids, though, in most cases.

 
Host plant
They are on a sapling that Arbor Day foundation labled "River Birch". With your guidance I looked at the references for woolly aphids listed on the information page. While it is specific to the woolly apple aphid it is a close fit. In that species however the flight stage occurs in the fall.