Overwintering Milkweed Bugs on the Prowl – Bug Squad

Have you ever seen any overwintering milkweed bugs these days?

A few dozen milkweed bugs, Oncopeltus fasciatus, emerged from seclusion Jan. 2, 2022 in our Vacaville backyard. The temperature hovered at 32 levels that morning, however when the solar peeked out, there they had been. Mating.

Little early, aren’t ya, buddies? When you’re ready for the primary milkweed seeds, get set for a protracted wait.

Jack Frost nailed what was left of most of our milkweed. So the place are the colourful reddish-orange/black bugs overwintering? In our close by cacti and succulents. 

Milkweed bugs are referred to as “seed eaters” of milkweed, however really they’re opportunistic and generalists, in accordance with Hugh Dingle, emeritus professor of entomology on the College of California, Davis. In a September 2019 Bug Squad weblog, Dingle informed us they’ll eat monarch eggs and larvae (milkweed is the host plant of monarchs), in addition to the oleander aphids that infest the milkweed.

“Milkweed bugs will get protein from wherever they will discover it,” stated Dingle,  an insect migration biologist and creator of the textbook,  Animal Migration: the Biology of Life on the Transfer. They have been identified to feed on bugs trapped within the sticky pollen of the showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa). And on nectar.

Dingle served on the UC Davis Division of Entomology school from 1982 to 2002, attaining emeritus standing in 2003.  Nationwide Geographic featured him in its cowl story on “Nice Migrations”  in November 2010.  LiveScience interviewed him for its November 2010 piece on “Why Do Animals Migrate?”

However milkweed is not the one plant that these bugs breed and feed on.   “The fascinating factor about milkweed bugs is that they’ll feed and breed spontaneously on Erysimum and Cheiranthus, two Brassicaceous genera that make cardenolides!”  UC Davis butterfly guru Artwork Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, informed us this week.

The superb world of milkweed bugs and the vegetation they feed and breed on…