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Milkweed Aphids - Aphis nerii
Family Aphididae
This page contains pictures and information about Milkweed Aphids that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Body length 3mm
- Milkweed Aphids also known as Oleander Aphids. The Aphids are bright yellow in colour with black legs. They have a pair of black posterior at the back of abdomen.
- The Milkweed Aphids feed only on oleanders and milkweeds. They start colony on tender young stems. Aphids usually cause very little damage to plants, although when a colony grow to very large, their high numbers and the honey dew they expelled make the plant look badly. Aphids suck the juice from plants but they do not need so many sugar. They pass them out of their bodies as honey-dew. This provides an excellent medium for the growth of a black fungus. Besides not good looking, the black fungus mold interferes with photosynthesis and somewhat retards the growth of the plant.
- There is a site in Macgregor, Brisbane with a lot of milkweeds. We often visit there to look for the Wanderer Butterflies. On those milkweeds, with a few plants, the whole plant is full of this yellow aphids. There are not many activates except all the aphids are sucking the juice from the plant. Notice that most of them are heading downwards.
- Most of them are female. Like all others aphids, they give birth to live nymph. On the above pictures those little white fellows are the newly born nymph. Notice there are the wingless and winged form of the aphids. Their wings are thin with very reduced venation.
- Lady-beetles are the major predators of aphids. Sometimes we can see a lady-beetle hunting among the aphids. The pictures show a lady-beetle caught one aphid and run to a quite place to eat it. At the center of the first picture, we can also see two maggots feeding on aphids. They could be the larvae of the Hoverfly.
- The aphid suck the milk from the milkweed. The ant come for the honey-dew of the aphid. The two ladybirds hunt for the aphid.
