Melanogaster attacks Nymph ?

[Serle]

One of my L1 Tenodera had a red attacker attached to their right side between back legs. I thought it was an aphid but there are not any

here this time of year . It looked as if a fruit fly had bitten then buried in. Trying to remove it I burst the red orb and it seem as if it were full of blood. I do not have a fine enough resolution camera or I would include a photo. Have you had this occurrence with a nymph ?   Wondering ...  Serle 

 

[CosbyArt]

@Serle No I've never seen anything like you described, it is not a fruit fly however - was it something you gave your nymph or what? I can tell you though fruit flies do not and can not bite. They use a fluid to break down the food and suck it up with specialized mouth parts, see here for details.

Perhaps you collected wild "fruit flies" or had your cultures taken over by the Biting midges (Ceratopogonidae sp.), that may explain what you saw, read about those here.

 

[Ranitomeya]

Fruitflies have mouthparts made for lapping up liquids and are unable to pierce or bite. What you were seeing is unlikely to be a fruitfly. There are red mites that parasitize other invertebrates like how ticks parasitize vertebrates and that may be what you saw.

Mantises do not have red blood. Their hemolymph, like most insects, is blue-green.

 

[Serle]

This nymph expired after I ''worked'' on her . Looking at it under a scope looks like a mite or midge of sorts. Definitely had red blood/fluid inside.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Yea, a lot of people think regular flies bite, but watching them, they suck up their food. Funny thing the other day, I had some bb flies in with 

my mendica's and the cricket was running around with one of them in its mouth, never seen that before.