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Description: The adult is about 1/8 inch long, with lacy clear wings marked with brown to black patterns. Nymphs are clear when young, growing darker until they are black with spines along the edges of their bodies.
Damage:
Life cycle:
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PEST PROFILES: AZALEA LACEBUG
Click on image to view larger. Azalea lace bug
Description:
The adult is about 1/8 inch long, with lacy clear wings marked with brown to black patterns. Nymphs are clear when young, growing darker until they are black with spines along the edges of their bodies.Damage:
Evergreen varieties of azalea are preferred, although deciduous varieties and mountain laurel are also host plants. Nymphal and adult stages of the lace bug occur on the underside of leaves. They injure leaves by sucking juices from the undersurface leaves, resulting in yellowish to brownish spotting on the upper surface. Severely injured leaves drop from the plant.Life cycle:
Winter is spent in the egg stage. Beginning in February, nymphs hatch from eggs in about 2 weeks and develop through five instars before becoming adults. Female lace bugs lay smooth, white eggs in the tissue of the underside of leaves, often along a large leaf vein. Two or more generations are produced per year, with periods of high nymphal numbers occurring from March through May and from July through September. Eggs deposited in leaves from September through October hatch the following spring.