🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨

At 8 to 11 millimeters in length, jagged ambush bugs (Phymata species) are small and mighty garden predators. Adults have an angular, greenish yellow, white, and brown bodies with small wings that leave the jagged sides of their abdomens exposed. Their forelegs are thickened with muscles and resemble the raptors of a praying mantis; like mantids, those legs are used to snatch and hold prey. Ambush bugs have short beaks that pierce into their prey and secrete saliva to dissolve the insect’s internal organs. The final segment of their antennae is slightly clubbed.

Jagged ambush bugs can be found throughout North America in southern Canada, most of the United States, and northern Mexico. They can often be seen in open meadows and gardens on the flowers of prairie plants like goldenrod and aster, where their body coloring will keep them hidden from potential prey.

Although smaller than their wheel and assassin bug cousins in the Reduviidae family, jagged ambush bugs are still voracious predators. As the name implies, they ambush their prey by sitting motionless and waiting for the right insect to pass by. These can be flies, small moths, beetle larvae, and other soft-bodied true bugs who are attracted to the plants the Phymata species sit on. They are also capable of catching prey much larger than themselves like bumble bees and butterflies.