Insect Vampires

While vampires don’t exist in the world of humans, there are some insects out there that fit the bill perfectly, gaining their nourishment by piercing the skin of plants and sucking out nutrients such as sugars and water. Some of them are even able to liquefy the plant’s tissue in order to easily consume their nutrients. The insect vampires also happen to be some of the biggest pests for farmers and gardeners. Here are a few of the biggest, baddest insect vampires you might find ruining your plants.

Aphids are probably the most notorious insect vampires. They are the bane of many farmers and gardeners across the world. These pests will suck the sap out of plants until the foliage turns brown and mottled, the leaves become wilted, and the growth is severely stunted. They also excrete honeydew, which attracts parasitic fungi and mold that can then be spread to other plants by the aphids. All in all these tiny critters cause a lot of destruction.

The brown marmorated stink bug is another insect vampire that causes a great deal of destruction and devastation around the country. They will inject their stylet into a plant to consume the nutrients and then actually inject their saliva into the plant, which causes pitting and scarring of the tissue. They have become a major problem for numerous agricultural crops and orchards, causing stunted growth, the spread of diseases, deformed leaves and buds, and even completely ruining crops. I think it’s safe to say that vampires are bad news for any living creature, be they human, insect, or animal.

What other vampire insects do you know of and what kind of destruction have they been known to cause?