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Cheshire, United Kingdom Gb

What are these bugs? I found them in a container of hostas that had bark chippings on top. I thought at first they were vine weevil larvae, but on closer inspection they don't seem to be. They are small - just a couple of millimetres (which is why the photos are blurred, sorry), long and thin, white/creamy coloured, have a lot of legs, and antennas (probably not the correct term). There were rather a lot of them in there. Some sort of centipedes maybe? And are they friend or foe?



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Answers

 

They have too many legs for a centipede so they will be millipedes. There are several species of millipedes in gardens that mainly live on decaying vegetation, so do no harm. These seem to be very small and pale coloured so will be babies. Definitely friends.

7 Nov, 2012

 

I agree - friendly millipedes :o)

7 Nov, 2012

 

Now I would say they are the larva of Fungus gnats myself.

7 Nov, 2012

 

fungus gnat larvae don't have legs, from experience with them.

7 Nov, 2012

 

Thank you all for your replies :o)

I just googled images of fungus gnat larvae and ewwww, they're not pretty! I don't think that's what these are because of the lack of legs, plus they have a 'black head capsule' which these didn't have.

Having also just been reading up about millipedes I see they like damp, dark places, especially rotting logs or leaf litter, so my decaying hosta leaves and old, wet bark chippings would seem to fit the bill pretty well for them.

7 Nov, 2012

 

just so you can tell the difference millipedes have 2 pairs of legs per segment and tend to be slower moving than the centipede which has 1 pr of legs per segent. Centipedes are very good as they are carnivores and active preditors.

But as correctly stated you have millipedes and are probably feasting on the decaying bark chips and old leaves.

8 Nov, 2012

How do I say thanks?

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