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I'm looking for something a bit more specific than "an ant" when you try to identify this mystery insect. Think you can name this Bug of the Week? You might need to read the clues in the forum first. Leave your answer here in a comment, as always. Next week, I'll be traveling and offline, so I won't give my usual cyber applause for correct answers, but I will post the right identification. So be sure to stop by!

Last week's critter may have been tough to ID to species from the photo, but one reader figured it out. Spotted snake millipedes (Blaniulus guttulatus) can be pests of some crops, as they feed on the roots and stems of plants underground. A shout out to BugBoy99 for the correct identification, and to Moni for knowing the key characteristic for differentiating millipedes from centipedes.

_{Photo: Russ Ottens, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org}

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Thomas Jefferson was an able farmer and gardener, like many of the Founding Fathers. Like gardeners everywhere, he concerned himself with insect pests, and experimented with methods to control their plant-destroying activities. In 1789, Jefferson wrote about a serious pest of peach trees:

"That which destroys the Peach tree is an Ichneumon...It lays it's egg in the peach tree a little within the surface of the earth soon after harvest. It hatches. The worm eats downwards, and becomes winged and escapes in May following...Boxing round the root, with 4. shingles or boards staked down and filled with dung, prevents the insect."

Jefferson's notes here relied heavily on the observations of William Bartram, a well-known naturalist and botanist of the time. The ichneumon to which he refers was actually the peach tree borer, according to Peter J. Hatch, author of The Fruits and Fruit Trees of Monticello. Jefferson and other peach growers of the time found the borer so insidious a pest, they generally treated their peach trees as perennial crops that required replacement every few years.

Want to learn more about the Founding Fathers and their thoughts about insects? Read what Benjamin Franklin wrote about ship worms.

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Did you know...

An Italian physician was the first to prove that maggots do not simply arise from rotting meat, as if by magic. Until 1668, people generally believed in this theory of spontaneous generation, the idea that these worms developed from the meat itself, rather than from an outside source. But Francesco Redi suspected something was putting those maggots in the meat, so he devised an experiment to test his hypothesis. Redi compared two groups of meat, one covered in gauze and one left uncovered. The uncovered meat was soon full of maggots. The meat wrapped in gauze remained maggot-free, but Redi observed flies gathering on the gauze. He determined the flies were the source of the maggots.

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This week's challenge may be a little tricky. Think you can identify the critters in this photo? If you can, leave your answer in a comment. Next Wednesday, I'll post the right answer, and give a cyber nod to readers who got it right. I've left some clues in the forum for you.

Last week's photo featured a webworm moth, specifically the ailanthus webworm moth, Atteva aurea. As Moni mentioned in her comment, this moth's larvae feed on the ailanthus tree, which is an exotic, invasive species, so hooray for the ailanthus webworm moth! BugBoy99 also knew the species, and TJ and Mike recognized it as a webworm moth. Well done, everyone.

_{Photo: Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org}

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