Milkweed Bug
Milkweed bugs are true bugs; beetles, moths, flies, and butterflies are not. Bugs have the usual complement of structures that they share with just about all other insects: six legs, three body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen), and two antennae. True bugs (Hemiptera) do not have mouths for biting and chewing food - they have a tube like beak for sucking fluids. The milkweed bug in nature sucks nutrients from milkweed seeds. Another characteristic of bugs generally and milkweed bugs specifically is the stages they go through from hatching to maturity. Bugs go through a simple metamorphosis. The insect emerges from an egg looking like a tiny version of the adult, with slight differences in body proportions and incompletely developed wings. The immature bugs are called nymphs. Newly hatched nymphs are analogous to the larvae of insects that go through complete metamorphosis, in that their prime directive is to eat and grow. As with all insects, in order to grow the nymphs must moult periodically. Just after moulting the bug is creamy yellow with bright red legs and antennae. Within a few hours the body turns dark orange, and the legs and antennae resume their usual black colour. The crispy little moults can be seen in the milkweed bug habitat about a week after the bugs hatch. The life cycle of the bugs advance through five nymphal stages (instars) as they mature, and each moult produces a larger nymph that is more completely developed. As the bugs grow, the dark wings appear on their backs as black spots. Other black markings start to appear and eventually develop into the characteristic patterns of black and orange by which the adults of the two sexes can be identified. The last moult reveals the adult. There is no pupal resting stage as in insects that undergo complete metamorphosis—the large nymph simply moults, and away walks the adult. Milkweed bugs continue to feed as adults, inserting their long beaks into sunflower seeds to suck out oils and other nutrients. Mating is easily observed, as the two mating bugs remain attached end to end for an extended time. It is possible to distinguish female and male adults by body markings. On the underside of the bugs, the tip of the abdomen is black, followed by a solid orange segment (with tiny black dots at the edges). If the next two segments following the orange band have solid black bands, the bug is a male, however if the segment following the orange band is orange in the middle, making it look like it has two large black spots on the sides, followed by a segment with a solid black band, the bug is female. Males tend to be smaller than females. Several days to 2 weeks after mating, the female lays a cluster of 50 or more yellow eggs in a wad of cotton.