The Milkweed Bug can be found where you can find milkweed plants. They have an oblong red and black colored shape to their body and they suck all the nutrient value in the seeds of the milkweed. The Milkweed Bug have exterior wings that protect smaller inner wings. They are truly bugs with no mouth or chewing type of mouth but have sucking elements in their mouth. They have 6 legs and 3 parts to their body. There are 2 types of milkweed bug the larger ones which are 10 to 15 mm big and the other which are 10 to 12 mm long. Both are true bugs and feed on the milkweed plants’ seeds. The Milkweed Bug are sometimes mistaken as the Boxelder bug.
Milkweed Bug Lifecycle
Their life cycle is a simple transformation from larva to bugs of adult phase. It is interesting to learn about the small and large milkweed bug life cycle. The stages of metamorphosis is from an egg to nymph and then to adult. Similar to the ladybug, they too don’t undergo a complete transformation from egg to adult. Looking at these stages individually you can see the differences in these. In the egg stage when the female lays clusters of 20 eggs in one day, in between pods of the milkweed plants, it is done carefully to avoid detection and safely.
An adult Milkweed Bug looks very similar to a boxelder bug
In the nymph period the eggs hatch in room temperature within a week of the eggs being laid. The Milkweed Bug look like smaller version of the bigger adults While the younger milkweed bug looks like specks of dust they are the crawly little bugs which will invade the milkweed plants soon. Half of the batch is males and the other half is females.
The Milkweed bug has a tough exterior which protects it from growing. So it bursts it and develops a more flexible one which allows it to grow in just minutes. So as soon as the outer covering grows hard, the nymph staged bug starts feeding. It also simultaneously grows.
In a week, the milkweed bug sheds its shell and the molted insect looks cream in color and has red colored antennae. The bug’s body then turns orange and the legs become black in color. This molting takes place five times in the life cycle of the milkweed bug and is called instar. During this stage the body marking can be seen and the body forms up firmly.
Milkweed Bug
In the adult stage, the milkweed bug grow larger and slightly change appearance. The whole process form nymph to adult takes four to eight weeks of time. The tips of the abdomen is in black while it is red partly. There are black bands in the part of it in orange. There are small black colored dots at the edges. The Male Milkweed bug are smaller in size in comparison to females which have ventral marking and can be differentiated from the males.
When a week later the bugs become adults, they mate and the egg laying starts again. The life cycle begins again. Then the adults may live for two months quietly. There is no reproduction in the fall and winters. It is fascinating to observe that these bugs use a method of reversing freezing in the cold months to survive.