Category: Insects

Michigan Experts Warn Residents About Spotted Lanternflies

Michigan experts warn residents about potential dangers of spotted lanternflies, provides tips on how to prevent the invasive species from spreading across the state. BY CAROL THOMPSON, Lansing State Journal LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The bugs don’t look so menacing when they’re pinned to the bottom of a cardboard box. By some standards they are pretty, with speckled outer wings, long legs curved delicately inward, a bold splotch of red that flashes when they fly. In Michigan, they only appear this way: Dead, contained and in expert hands. It’s unclear how long that will last. The insects are making their way across the East Coast, feasting on the insides of trees, carpeting infested forests in sticky secretions and threatening multi-million dollar agriculture and forestry industries. They are hundreds of miles away, but with their tendency to lay eggs on vehicles, that doesn’t matter. The question isn’t if the spotted lanternfly will get…

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It’s that time of year again! 

It’s that time of year again!  Bees are buzzing, Wasps are building nest, and We are doing everything we can to avoid getting stung!  The good news, if there is any, is that there are only a few of these Yellow Stripey Things that actually sting including Yellow Jackets, Paper Wasps, and Cicada Killers – the rest are more of an annoyance.  We offer a wide range of services to protect your home and family from stinging and non-stinging pests!  For the specifics on insect removal, please call Creature Control 1-800-441-1519 today to speak to one of our qualified pest control specialists!  

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Late Mosquito Season This Fall

Are you going to be eaten alive by mosquitoes over the next few weeks? Depends on where you live. Due to unseasonably high levels of rainfall in August, we are poised for some more intensive levels of mosquito activity in Michigan for the fall of 2018. Rain itself is not the cause of increased mosquito activity; rather, it is standing water. When lots of rain falls in low-lying or flat areas without sufficient time for the absorption of rain water, the result is large quantities of standing water which in turn become breeding sites for mosquitoes. In Michigan, this is particularly a concern in Saginaw, Bay, Midland and Tuscola Counties, which all have low elevation ground and lots of standing water. These areas can turn into mosquito-hell when there’s a heavy rainfall, but this can really be the case anywhere that is flat or low-lying terrain. The presence of standing…

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Yellow Jacket Removal Ypsilanti

One of the most alarming pest control problems for any homeowner is the unexpected discovery of stinging insects building a hive inside the walls or ceiling of a home. German yellow jackets are particularly notorious for this. Their capacity for creating massive nests that can expand to fill spaces of astonishing size; if you don’t believe me, review our post on the biggest yellow jacket nests ever. In a home, yellow jackets get access to a ceiling space or wall void and begin constructing a nest. The construction of the nest is itself a destructive act; yellow jackets actually create their nests by chewing tiny fragments of drywall, mixing the material with their saliva, and then use the mixture as building material. For this reason, the presence of a yellow jacket nest can often be identified by a kind of crackling, crunching sound—almost like the sound of Rice Krispies snapping….

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Brown recluse sightings up in Michigan

Michigan has two venomous spiders, the Black widow and the Brown recluse. Thankfully both are relatively rare. However, recently sightings of the Brown recluse have been on the rise in Michigan. Identifying a Brown recluse can be tricky; common Wolf spiders and orb weavers often get mistaken for the venomous Brown recluse. A Brown recluse is going to have a sandy brown body with a dark marking that is shaped like a violin (the “neck” of the violin points backward towards the abdomen).  Brown recluse’s have a uniform color pattern; if there is more than one color on the legs, or if the legs are brown or darker, it is not a recluse.  If the spider has more than one pigment on the abdomen, it is not a recluse. But the most certain way to identify a Brown recluse is through its eye arrangement. Unlike most spiders, the Brown recluse…

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Swarming Boxelders!

In Michigan, the changing of the seasons brings with it an abundance of boxelder bugs. The boxelder is a type of beetle, easily identifiable by the reddish-orange markings on their backs. They take their name from the boxelder tree, where they feed and lay eggs during the warmer months. Boxelders are a huge nuisance in the spring and fall. In the fall, they tend to congregate en masse on the sunny side of homes where they search for cracks and crevices in which to overwinter to keep warm. The sheer quantity of boxelders that can congregate can be staggering, leading home owners to panic. The autumn swarming of box elders is temporary, however, and goes away as soon as the weather gets cold. However, if your home has not had some sort of perimeter or barrier treatment, its likely a lot of these boxelders will wind up in your home…

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Giant Yellow Jacket Nest

One of the most common summer pests we deal with are yellow jackets. Yellow jackets are an aggressive type of wasp that make nests in all sorts of places. Decks, eaves, soffits, gutters, and even holes in brick can become places where yellow jackets will infiltrate to set up nests. Yellow jacket nests can become quite large; if you don’t believe it, check out this article on seven gargantuan yellow jacket nests. If yellow jackets can get inside a place where there is enough room to grow, they can get pretty enormous. Our article linked above demonstrates this with pics of abandoned cars and completely taken over by yellow jackets. However, for the regular homeowner, this is most likely to happen when yellow jackets get into a wall space or into the attic. In these dark, dry, usually undisturbed locations, yellow jackets can build their nests in relative privacy until…

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Creature Control Removes Giant Spider

Creature Control technicians spend most of their time dealing with nuisance wildlife that is more run of the mill – stuff like raccoon trapping, bat removal, catching groundhogs and things of that sort. However, once in awhile we get a call for something a little more…exotic? We ran across just such a case recently in Jackson, Michigan when our office got a call about an unwanted pest. The folks that called us were from a shipping warehouse in Jackson. This business regularly receives crates and packages from all over North America. One day in July, they opened a shipping container from Texas and were shocked to see a massive spider come scrambling out. The spider was a tarantula, one of America’s most well known giant spiders. The employees contained the spider and called Creature Control to come remove it. Our technician Dave was dispatched to take care of the tarantula….

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Tick Borne Diseases

The past few years have saw a dramatic increase in tick activity throughout Michigan. Anecdotally, many life-time Michiganders are telling me that they have seen more ticks in the past year than in their whole life. There are several reasons for this. For one, deer ticks have been migrating into Michigan in greater numbers since the 2000s, so there are simply more deer ticks living in the state, especially on the west side. Increased deer populations, decreased hunting, and conversion of farms into residential subdivisions with treed lots are also contributors. Along with this increased activity comes renewed fears about tick borne illnesses. In this article, we will review the basics about Lyme disease, but also Powassan virus, a little known but very debilitating tick borne illness that people need to be aware of. Lyme Disease: Causes and Symptoms Lyme disease is the most common tick borne illness in the United…

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Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs

Perhaps you have noticed more of these critters in your home this season? This fellow is known as the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug. Like box elders, they tend to cluster around homes in the late fall. The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug is an invasive species originating from Asia, similar to the Asian lady beetle. It has few predators here in the United States, so in the past decade it has spread across the Midwest at an alarming rate. The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug is an agricultural pest; it feeds on plants and can cause massive damage to a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and other valuable crops in Michigan. 2016 was a record year for Brown Marmorated Stink Bug sightings, with one home reporting over 25,000! As a home invader, most Michigan residents will notice the stinkbugs showing up in early fall. As the weather begins to cool, the stinkbugs…

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