Phymata

Late-season flowers are a boon to pollinators prepping for winter. Two of my favorites are members of the Asteraceae family: Late-Flowering Thoroughwort (Eupatorium serotinum) and Goldenrods (Solidago spp.). They are pollinator magnets.

Thomas Becker (OSU Extension, Lorain County) showed participants in this week’s weekly BYGL Zoom Inservice a nice shot of a Jagged Ambush Bug (Phymata spp., family Reduviidae) lurking among flowers in search of prey. Meat items for these tiny predators are most often pollinators.