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New Brunswick

A short time ago, I mentioned my husband finding a bug attacking and killing a much larger earthworm. I caught this one last week. I have called the dept of agriculture and they want to see it as it cannot be identified by description. Have any of you seen this "beast"? It is very fast and hides immediatly in soil when I try to look at it, diving in head first, tail a wiggling. No one around here has ever heard seen one of these and I cannot find anything like it on line. I sure hope some of you will know what it is. I have a picture of it in the last entry of my diary.

7/25/2003 8:51:30 AM

Spanish Ontario

DEAD i will look an see

7/25/2003 9:40:25 PM

Montoursville, PA

My guess from pix and description is your worm is a wire worm. It is the only guy I know that works like that! Don't believe it is of any concern in matured plant. Think they only do damage of concern to small plants just emerging up to the point where the plant root or stem is hardened off.

They will cut off newly planted transplants right at the soil line.

7/26/2003 8:17:29 AM

New Brunswick

Hi docpipe...I looked wireworm up on the net and cannot find where it will attack earthworms. Also this guy is jet black and according to the info on wireworms, they are not that colour. It looks nothing at all like any potato wire worm I have seen...maybe it is a different foreign variety of wireworm not native to here?? If you can find anything more by all means let me know.

7/26/2003 9:13:18 AM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

It is definately not a wireworm. It has six legs from what I can see. What I cant see is if the head is segmented and the jaws or pinchers. My guess is the larval stage of a predatory beetle, or it almost looks like a lace wing or dragonfly larvae but different. Is it wet or swampy around your pumpkin patch?

7/26/2003 3:34:41 PM

New Brunswick

Hi Rainydays....I have not seen them in my pumpkin patch. They are in my flower beds in front of my house. The ground can be wet there (especially as it rained all week) *grin* but it is just ordinary horse manure and soil mixed. I just checked him...he has just a small head...not segmented...only where neck attached to body. He has a pointy hind end. He is greyish underneath and black on top with a hard shell. He goes like a bat out of you know where when you shake him out of the dirt I have him in. They have powerful jaws.

7/26/2003 4:56:14 PM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

Ground beetle larvae....

7/26/2003 11:52:00 PM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

good bug...send them to my patch...:)

7/27/2003 12:03:49 AM

Canton,Mass

I agree with Rainydays.

7/27/2003 10:07:28 AM

nanaimo,B.C,Canada

looks to me like a centipede. harmless

Dave

7/27/2003 11:28:53 AM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

Dave it has six legs. :0) not one hundred

7/27/2003 2:02:25 PM

New Brunswick

Rainydays! You are a genius!!! That is just what it is.... A ground beetle larvae. How ever did you find it? I had searched every bug site I could find. Here is where I found a picture of him. http://gardening.wsu.edu/library/inse002/inse002.htm
(Thanks to you I knew what to look for.) I just took him out and released him in my flower bed. Did he ever take off! I had kept him for 9 days. Glad I did not kill him. Thanks again.

7/27/2003 3:03:32 PM