State: Louisiana

12/13/2012

Yellow Jackets

(Length: 5/8″ – 1″) Often confused with honeybees due to their yellow and black markings, they can be distinguished from bees by their thin waists. Yellow jackets are social insects and will aggressively defend their nests, which are typically located in the ground.

12/13/2012

Honeybees

(Length: 1/2″) These “hairy” bees have yellow and dark brown coloring and thick bodies. They are not aggressive and will leave people alone if not provoked, but they are defensive and will attack anything that threatens the colony or individual.

12/13/2012

Pill Bug

(Length: 1/4″ – 3/8″) Pill bugs are found in lawn turf, under leaves or other moist areas of decaying vegetable matter. Extremes of wet, dry, or hot weather drive them inside, where they do no damage but are an annoyance.

By James Lindsey at Ecology of Commanster, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1670090
12/13/2012

Millipede

(Length: 1″ – 1 1/2″) Brownish and worm-like in appearance with many body segments, millipedes have two pairs of legs on each segment. They typically live outside in moist vegetation, leaf litter and mulch and feed upon decaying organic wood and plant matter.

Centipede - Massey Services
12/13/2012

Centipede

(Length: 1″ – 2″) The color of the centipede varies depending on the species, but most are brown to orange brown with many body segments. Unlike millipedes, centipedes only have one pair of legs per segment.

12/13/2012

Powder Post Beetle

(Length: 1/8″ – 1/4″) Adults are reddish brown to black and very slender. The powder post beetle damages seasoned hardwoods such as flooring, furniture and structural woods. The larva, living in and eating the wood, can take up to four years to develop.

Old House Borer - Massey Services
12/13/2012

Old House Borer

(Length: 1/2″ – 3/4″) This is a member of the group known as “long-horned beetles”. Eggs are laid in crevices of the bark of cut logs. The whitish larva live 3-5 years or more, eating through the wood.

12/13/2012

Carpenter Bee

(Length: 3/4″ – 1″) These large dark bees that resemble bumble bees are often seen hovering around the eaves of a house, wooden fences or the underside of a deck in the late spring. They bore round holes into wood to nest.

Widow Spider
12/13/2012

Widow Spider

(Length: 1 1/2″ long) The Southern Black Widow is glossy black with a red hourglass marking on the underside of its abdomen. The female is much larger and more distinctly marked than the male. It makes a strong, sticky irregular web in protected areas where prey is likely to wander in and be trapped.

12/13/2012

Brown Recluse Spider

(Length: 1/4″ – 1/2″) The brown recluse is a brownish spider with a distinctive violin-shaped mark behind its eyes, which has earned it the name “fiddle-backed” spider.

12/13/2012

Smoky-Brown Cockroach

The smoky-brown cockroach is uniform in color, typically brownish black and very shiny. They are good flyers and are attracted to lights at night. Found in warm, dark, moist areas such as tree holes, ivies, mulch, woodpiles and soffits or eaves of attics with moisture problems, they are very mobile.

12/13/2012

Brown Banded Cockroach

(Length: 1/2″- 5/8″) The brown-banded cockroach is easily recognized by alternating light and dark bands across its back. About the same size as the German roach, but not as dependent on moisture, it can be found anywhere in the structure.