Black bug/pre-historic looking thing with yellow stripes

I have just killed aphads on my 2 jacarandahs and have now noticed I have these black insect things that have 2 horizontal yellow stripes across their backs. What are they and how do I get rid of them? They seem to be eating my plants. Will any home solutions do the job?

This whole gardening experience....is introducing me into the world of bugs/pests etc. Yuck.

I do just nothing, well not exactly I pick them up and if I find them to be a pest I just use my shoe to kill them . When my kids were still at home they earned their pocket money collecting snails into jars with salt in them, it was quite a competition . Plants usually recover after a pest attack, the main thing is to get a biological balance in your small yard environment. After a while the good wasps, praying mantis, lady bugs and birds will deal with the pests. I have not sprayed anything for 20 years in my garden. I do not mind an occasional hole in a leaf but love watching birds chasing insects for their and their chicks dinner.
maggie

I am 99% sure from the description that they are actually lady bugs. What I have noticed is that when a plant starts to get attacked by aphids, the good old lady bug comes to the rescue, before you know it the aphids are out of the picture...

http://www.countrybrookfarms.com/_image ... phosis.png

There are many varieties of lady bugs but they should look something like this.

I don't believe they are a lady bug/beetle. I will post a pic tomorrow hopefully. Some strange lady bug if it is.

Anything like this?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitchdonov ... 426508165/

OMG YES! YES! YES! That's the bug! Wow! Well done Redman!!!!!!!!!

My next Q is what are they doing to my plant? Any cause for concern???

That is a lady bug.

Oh WOW!!!! Seriously! It's taken 30 years to see a lady bug like this! Wow. At least I didn't kill them-I just flicked some off. Do they eat other bugs that may be on my plant?

It looks like a ladybird larvae to me too. It's the immature stage of a ladybird before it "grows up" into a normal looking one. Leave them they will eat aphids etc. It would make sense if the tree had lots of aphids because the ladybirds lay their eggs where there will be food for them when they hatch and these guys would have cleaned up the aphids for you.

Oh wow. Good bugs too! Yay! I am so new to gardening and I'm not liking this bug thing at all. It'll be spiders too soon. I've seen them-as long as they keep to themselves and don't come into the house. I looked for those bugs but couldn't find them. I did see a lady bug red and yellow inside the house the other day so maybe they have grown up.

when the larve turn to Lady bugs check to see howmany dots they have.
If it is anything but 28 all is good.
Predatory bugs help us and is why we don't use poisons.

I have never used poisons yet onc. I just used soapy warm water and cooking oil in a spray bottle and seemed to work well for the aphads.

Your in Perth yeah?
Send a sample to the Ag Dept (who's bloody website is down ) They have Entomologists (insect people), well not real insect people, they are on Dr Who but they know stuff about insects) who will identify the bugger for you. It's free

I'm in Victoria Fu. I was going to ring the garden guy on the radio the other morning but someone on here identified the little bug.

which was what? and who identified it? were they an entemologist? a bug person? The victorian ag dept would no doubt be happy to do it for nothing with theor people.

also what is very important is to recognise the balance of things in your garden!

Just because you see a bug doesn't mean you should kill it!

There are good and bad bugs. The good ones will be sorting out the bad guys. Chances are he was eating the aphids and keeping the balance. When we use over prescribed insecticides we kill both good and bad things in the garden and I can assure you it isn't he good things that fill an emprty sterile vacuum once pesticides are used A good horticulturist will not recomend a treatment but an explanation of how a important a balance is in the garden

this isn't hippy BS.

Some of the best nurseries in Australia use integrated pest management to better effect than using pesticides. Cheaper, cleaner and more effective. Good bugs to control bad ones

http://www.goodbugs.org.au/

Pesticides will always kill more bees than anything else. World bee numbers are plummeting and it is said that without bees the human species will live 3 years. Bees make our food happen

Thanks Fu but Redman identified it. The bugs have gone so that's good for now and I haven't killed any of them.