by James Bennie

One autumn a few years ago, I was photographing butterflies and plants in Olmito when I noticed a yellow sulphur butterfly struggling like crazy, caught on a blue mistflower. I assumed it was in a spider web and as hard as it was beating its wings would soon get loose. It was puzzling, though, because I didn’t see a web and blue mistflower has no barbs to catch a butterfly by the edge of its wing like this one was. Finally, the butterfly flew off so I approached the mistflower wondering what in the world had happened. 

All I could see was a blue flower head with what seemed like a small yellowish brown ball of dead plant matter on it. “Is that alive?” I asked myself. As I stared at the brown ball I must have made it nervous because a little leg moved enough to tell me it was an insect. It was small, only about one-quarter inch in size, so I couldn’t tell many details. 

With my camera on macro, I eventually got a few shots in focus. When enlarged, I could identify the tiny body parts of this mighty insect. Its forearms were big, like Popeye the sailor, so I guessed it was a young praying mantis since they have similar features and are masters of camouflage. Like Popeye, it must have eaten its spinach, because it held the larger, struggling butterfly just by the edge of its forewing while anchoring itself to the flower head. No wonder insects have six legs! I was amazed at its strength for a tiny insect. Attitude and appetite probably also played a part. Maybe size doesn’t matter.

Fast forward three years to the pandemic when I was busy cleaning closets and sorting old magazines. I glanced at a publication of The Xerces Society, an organization promoting insects, and on the back cover was a photograph of an insect on a flower head. I gasped as I realized this was the mighty diminutive creature I had seen in Olmito years before! 

I realized it wasn’t a mantis after all, it was a jagged ambush bug (Phymata species). Popeye arms and all! I knew of ambush bugs, but did not know about these little guys. An internet search indicated there are many varieties of these insects found all over the U.S. and Canada. 

As camouflaged hunters, they sit on flowers and grab whatever insects appear. By injecting a poison into their victim theynot only kill, but digest the insides, which are later slurped up by the hungry hunter’s straw-like mouthpart.  This poison allows them to eat insects larger than themselves. The one I saw only had the butterfly by the wing and hadn’t been able to poison it before it escaped. These insects are considered beneficial to gardeners because they eat many different types of garden pests. They can, however, also eat other good insects such as bees. 

Finding this small insect one sunny afternoon, I wonder how many other tiny living things are around us every day that we miss. Who knows what we might find if we only take the time to look! I feel so lucky to have accidentally found this tiny jagged ambush bug among the flowers.