Ever wandered happily amongst your vegetables, marvelling at all those growing harvests, to then recoil at the sight of a ugly, gross, maggot-like creature squirming its way across the leaves? Something like this, for example.

I mean, they're pretty gross. And that's just a picture. If you watch them move - well, that squirming, wriggling weirdness is almost the stuff of science fiction. For years, I saw these horrible things everywhere and took great delight in squashing them.

Get off my plants. How very dare you try and eat my veggies! Keep out. Stay away!

Imagine, then, my HORROR when I discovered these were not horrible little critters after all, but the larvae of hoverflies! All these years, how many hundreds of babies have I killed? And you know the good thing about hoverflies? They EAT aphids. And not only that. Their larvae eat aphids too.

So all these years, I'd be accidently killing off some of the very garden friends I need and want in my garden, thereby allowing the armies of sap-sucking, honey-dew producing greenfly, whitefly, blackfly and all their other namesakes to prosper!

Know Your Insects

One of the things I LOVE about wildlife, conservation, gardening and homesteading is the learning curve and the ability to discover new things all the time. No day is ever quite the same, and whether something crops up with your livestock or your spot something strange in the garden, there's always an exciting discovery to make.

When it comes to organic gardening, it's even more important to know just who's on your side. For example, those little black and yellow striped tanks scuttling around the foliage are also larvae and look nothing like their parents. But both baby and adult ladybirds (as we call them in the UK) also eat aphids and are, therefore, a HUGE friend to any gardener.

We all know what ladybirds look like, but identifying their larvae is important too if you're not to accidentally kill them off.

Embrace the Weirdness

Okay, so hoverfly larvae are - and I'll be polite - 'unique'. And actually, spend a few moments getting past 'eurgh, what the hell is that?' and they're pretty incredible and wacky things. Keep an eye out for them, welcome them, embrace them because they're a biological aphid control you REALLY want around.

Ain't Mother Nature awesome?!

Hoverfly larvae are wondefully weird.

I was so obsessed, I made a little video - jump forward to just after 2 minutes and you'll see their strange movement.

Thanks for reading! Have you come across these in the past? What wildlife discovery has made you sit up and take notice?

THANKS FOR READING - PLEASE CONSIDER UPVOTING, RESTEEMING AND REPLYING BELOW

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