Most green bugs that you find in your garden or yard are harmless to humans.
They’re plant pests that prefer to live outdoors.
Some of them are also helpful bugs that eat other insects that damage plants.
But these little green bugs can bite humans if they come in contact with human skin.
However, one of them doesn’t bite, but they’re very toxic for humans.
Let’s get into the tiny green bugs that bite and when they’re most likely to bite you.
8 Tiny Green Bugs That Can Bite You
- Pale green assassin bugs
- Green leafhoppers
- Green thrips
- Katydids
- Ambush bugs
- Green Tiger beetles
- Dogbane leaf beetles
- Sweat bees
Most of these small green bugs are beneficial insects that prefer to live in your garden.
But they can accidentally enter your home.
Some of these bugs are attracted to light. So, they can crawl inside your home to reach the light bulb.
Pale Green Assassin Bug Or Zelus Luridus
Pale green assassin bugs, with scientific name as Zelus Luridus, is a common assassin bug species that is native of North America.
These bugs are widespread in the Eastern parts of the US.
Growing between 12-18 mm in size, the pale green assassin bug is a helpful small green bug.
It’s because it hunts and eat small insects like the aphids, mealybugs, and caterpillars, that can harm plants.
Pale green assassin bugs have long, narrow, and slightly flat bodies with triangle-shaped heads.
The body shape allows them to move easily through organic debris like foliage.
It also enables the pale green assassin bugs to lurk and pounce on their prey.
They’re pale green in color and can have patches of yellow or beige on their backs.
Pale green assassin bugs have long thin legs. They use the front pair of legs to catch their prey.
Their mouths have a strong beak that they use to stab and kill their prey.
They also use the beak, which is also known as the proboscis, to suck out the juicy bodily fluids of their preys.
Pale green assassin bugs use the same beak to bite you if you try to handle them.
However, they’ll not seek humans to bite.
And when they bite, they don’t draw out any blood from you.
But the bites are as painful as a spider bites.
We don’t recommend getting rid of pale green assassin bugs from your garden as they’re very helpful for the plants.
They kill all plant pests that helps in keeping your plants safe.
If a pale green assassin bugs, don’t worry.
Just apply bug bite ointment on the bite wound.
You can also apply ice packs on the bite wound to get relief.
Green Leafhoppers
Green leafhoppers are tiny green plant pests that grow up to 3-4 mm in size.
They’re thin and wedge-shaped with their wings covering their entire body when they’re at rest.
Green leafhoppers are capable fliers. But they’re also good jumpers too because of their strong hind legs.
Green leafhoppers have nothing to do with humans. They don’t feed on human blood.
But they can bite you if you try to hold them or when they can come in contact with your skin.
Those bites are cautionary bites to protect themselves.
You can experience some itching after the bite. And a little red lump can also develop on the bitten area.
But that’s it.
There’s no other side effect of green leafhoppers’ bite unless you’re severely allergic to bug bites.
Green leafhoppers are attracted to light from the light bulbs.
So, they can sneak inside your home if through open doors and windows.
Spring and summer are the times when these leafhoppers are active.
It’d be best to install window shields on the windows facing the garden so that these bugs don’t enter your home.
Green leafhoppers are voracious leaf eaters.
And they can affect a range of plants, such as fruit and vegetable plants and ornamental plants.
They feed on the plant’s sap.
Green leafhoppers will use their sharp-sucking mouthparts to insert into the plants’ leaves to draw the sap.
Green leafhoppers infestation causes wilting, yellowing, curling of leaves, and weakening of the plants.
They can also spread diseases from one plant to another.
There are many ways to control green leafhoppers to protect the plants in your garden.
One of them is using the insecticides that are specific to garden pests, especially to green leafhoppers.
Always check if the insecticide is safe to use for plants.
Read the safety instructions on the label, and follow them, before using the spray.
You can also use a strong spray of water on them and crush them if there aren’t too many of them in your plants.
You’ll also need to ensure that your garden or yard doesn’t provide green leafhoppers the places to hide and breed.
You can do that by removing the debris from your garden.
You can also control green leafhoppers biologically by inviting their natural predators such as ladybugs or lacewings.
Green Thrips
Green thrips are the smallest of all the green bugs that bite in the list.
They grow up to 1/20th of an inch in size. And they’re plant pests too.
Green thrips have small mandibles on their mouths that they use to suck out the leaf sap.
Too many of them can cause the leaves to wither off and die.
So, they’re harmful for the plants.
Green thrips can bite humans too. But those bites are just probationary bites to check if the thing they landed on are plants or not.
So, they bite once and drop off.
The bite feels like a slight pinch. And there’s no side effects like itchy red welts.
Thrips hide on the leaves’ undersides.
A strong spray of water on the leaves eliminates them from the plants.
Pale green assassin bugs, ladybugs, and lacewings hunt and eat thrips.
So, if you see these predatory bugs, it’ll be wise to leave them alone because they can bring the thrips population in your garden to zero.
Thrips are not only green. They can come in different colors like yellow, black, and white.
Thrips can also enter homes, especially when you mistakenly introduce potted plants in the house with thrips on them.
Meadow Katydids
Katydids, also known as the bush crickets or long-horned grasshoppers, have long slender bodies, and large triangular heads.
Like the crickets, katydids make a clicking sound at night by rubbing their frontal wings and by contracting their bodies.
A specific species of tiny green katydids, known as the meadow katydids or green katydids, are common in gardens.
Meadow katydids are 0.5 inches in size with two pairs of wings.
The front pair of wings are big and thick. The rear pair of wings are small, thin, and membranous.
Meadow katydids have a pair of large and powerful hind legs that help them to jump long distances.
Katydids are not your typical harmful garden pests.
But they can inflict damages on small plants and stressed and unhealthy plants.
However, katydids act as vectors or carriers of plant pathogens that they pick up from sick plants and transfer to healthy plants while feeding.
Meadow katydid is little green bug that can bite if you try to handle it is the katydid.
But they’re not know to purposefully bite humans like other biting bugs.
Their bites don’t pose any risk at all. In fact, these bugs are harmless to humans.
Meadow katydids have spines on their legs, which they use as a defense against predators.
If you accidentally come in contact with these spines, then it can cause minor itching and skin irritation.
Ambush Bugs
Ambush bugs are close green cousins of assassin bugs that can bite you if try to handle them.
They’ve got a sharp beak that they insert into your skin to bite you.
Ambush bugs, like the pale green assassin bugs, are fierce predators.
They wait motionless in the organic debris like leaf piles to hunt their prey.
Ambush bugs look menacing despite being tiny.
Growing only up to half inches or 12 mm in size, ambush bugs have green serrated irregular bodies.
Their color and body shape camouflage them with leaves, making them hard to detect.
Ambush bugs will also wait on the flowers to hunt bees.
So, you might notice them sitting on the flowers, patient waiting for a bee to land.
Like all assassin bugs in your garden, ambush bugs are also beneficial insects.
They hunt and eat many damaging plant pests.
Green Tiger Beetles
Green tiger beetles or the six-spotted green tiger beetle is a gorgeous looking beetle that is truly beneficial for your garden.
You’ll find green tiger beetles across mostly in the Midwest and in the Eastern US.
However, the sightings of green tiger beetles in your property aren’t as regular as the other bugs in the list.
These beetles live near the woods.
So, unless you’re living near the woods the chances of them sneaking into your yard or garden is pretty low.
Green tiger beetles are prolific predators. They’ll hunt down, and eat, pests and bugs in your garden.
These tiny green bugs grow between ½ inches and 5/8 inches. And they’re active starting from the spring.
With their shinny green color, visible mandibles, and antennae, these beetles look able hunters.
Green tiger beetles are attracted to artificial light.
So, during the summer months you’ll find them hanging around near porch lights hunting other bugs and insects.
That’s the time when they can sneak inside your home.
But your home’s interior isn’t a natural habitat for green tiger beetles.
So, they don’t bring any infestation risk because they can’t breed indoors.
If you see a green tiger beetle inside the house, use a vacuum cleaner on it to scoop it off.
And dispose it outside.
Green tiger beetles can bite if you they get too close to your skin.
However, green tiger beetles are not default human biters. They tend to keep away from humans and animals.
They’re beneficial insects for your garden.
So, it’ll be best to leave them alone if you see these bugs in the garden.
Dogbane Leaf Beetle
Dogbane leaf beetles are the most beautiful insect in this list. These beetles are small, bright green, and oval shaped.
You’ll find these dog bane beetles in eastern and northeastern US and in southeastern Canada.
These little green bugs grow only up to a quarter of an inch long and some of these bugs can be bluish, gold, and coppery.
Green is the dominant color on the dogbane leaf beetles.
Their heads are bright green, and the mixture of colors are mostly on their thorax and back.
Dogbane leaf beetles got their name from their habit of feeding only the dogbane plant leaves in the meadows. They can also eat milkweed leaves.
Dogbane leaf beetles are brightly colored which signals two things.
First, these beetles are highly poisonous and second, they taste really bad for their predators.
These two characteristics make these beetles quite carefree.
They won’t mind even taking a nap in broad day light on a leaf without any fear of birds, spiders, and lizards.
Dogbane leaf beetles don’t bite.
But on touching them, they release a poisonous compound which is known as cardenolides.
Cardenolides are lethal to animals, birds, and humans because it’s lethal for the heart.
When threatened by a predator, or if the dogbane beetle feels threatened by a human, they can secrete the cardenolides to defend themselves.
Most herbivores and animals who’ve consumed these beetles have died because these cardenolides caused heart failure.
Dogbane beetles are particularly dangerous for dogs.
Because if the dogs bite them then these beetles will immediately secrete those lethal compounds which can make your dog terribly sick if not kill it.
These beetles have a very short lifespan. They don’t survive for more than six to eight weeks.
And during their lifespan, these beetles make the most of it by mating every day.
The best way to get rid of dogbane leaf beetles in your garden is by removing the dogbane and milkweed plants.
Follow it up by using plant safe insecticide sprays.
However, keep in mind that both dogbane and milkweed plants grow back despite removing them.
So, you’d also need a herbicide to prevent these plants from growing back.
Sweat Bees
Not completely green, yet with shades of green mixed with blue, bronze, and black, sweat bees are attracted to human sweat.
Sweat bees are active from the beginning of the spring till late summer.
These bees are helpful pollinators, and they’ll pollinate all types of flowers.
Hence, they’re beneficial bees which you wouldn’t want to get rid of.
According to the United States Agricultural Department, the pollination capability of sweat bees is the one of the best among all types of pollinating bees.
Their complex digestive systems and the ability of the female sweat bees to carry pollen on their backs enable them to process different types of pollens.
There are 1000 species of sweat bees in North and Central America. But Florida has the highest number of sweat bees species with 44 types of sweat bees.
They’re widespread across the continental US and they’re eusocial while living in their colonies. Eusocial bees live in individual cells that they make inside their hives.
Sweat bees are make their nests underground.
The queen sweat bee, which is also known as gyne, creates the cells in the nest and populate it with eggs.
These eggs eventual hatch. Larvae come out of these eggs and then they pupate.
From the pupae adult sweat bees pop out who build the nest further helping the queen the populate the nest with more eggs.
These bees are quite a nuisance because they swarm in large numbers.
And when you sweat, you’ll attract the sweat bee swarms.
Sweat bees are not aggressive and even when they land on your body they don’t sting.
However, they can sting if you press the sweat bees against your skin.
So, if a sweat bee lands on your skin, wipe it off instead of crushing it.
The sting of the sweat bees is the least painful amongst all the stinging bees.
If you’re stung by a sweat bee, it wouldn’t be as grave as the sting from a honeybee or an Africanized bee.
Though you might feel a slight poke on your skin while the sweat bee stings you.
There might be a little bit of swelling on the bitten area of your skin. But it’s highly unlikely that you’ll have any reaction because of the sting.
Pain from the sweat bee sting don’t last beyond a few hours.
Applying ice pack or an antiseptic on the bitten wound will pacify any pain that you might feel after the sting.
Summary
All the tiny green bugs that you found on the list do not bite humans by default.
They bite humans if you try to handle them or if they get pressed against your skin.
The dogbane leaf beetle doesn’t bite. But it’s the most dangerous green bug in the list.
On touching it, it discharges that poisonous compound that is very harmful for both humans and animals.
Dr. Thomas Orbert, the Microbial Maestro, dances with the tiniest of creatures as an entomologist extraordinaire! With a PhD in entomology, his passion lies in unraveling the secret symphonies of insect-microbe interactions. From minuscule marvels to captivating complexities, Dr. Orbert unveils the hidden world of bugs, igniting curiosity one buzz at a time!