beetle ID

[Tracy]

This morning I carefully removed a loose dead and dry leaf frond from my Dypsis prestoniana.  It was loose and on the verge of dropping on top of a nice cycad which is getting ready to push a flush, so I was averting damage to another prized plant.  I carried the frond over closer to my recycling cans to cut it up but when I came back from grabbing my large cutters to cut the frond down to size I found this beetle on the concrete adjacent to the removed frond.  I didn't like seeing it, so looked up photos of my worst nightmare, the S American weevil, which it doesn't match!  Hooray!  Bottom line, any entomologists or wanna be entomologists who can id this and tell me if its something that may threaten my palms?  By the way, the Dypsis prestoniana looks great, and shows no signs of any others or any damage.  I did squash his back end before going in to grab a camera, so it wouldn't escape.

[Tracy]

Still healthy looking Dypsis prestoniana, where the beetle seemingly was before I found it on the ground adjacent to the removed frond.

[Tracy]

A little more light on the subject and a little more zoomed in on my unwelcome visitor.

[caixeta]

Bedbug .

[Tracy]

1 hour ago, caixeta said:

Bedbug .

Happily I can say not to bedbug, as it is too large to be a bedbug.  The one in my photo is approximately 2 cm long on the body, so roughly double what I read an adult bedbug would be.  The color is wrong, and this has more defined wings than the bedbug photos I saw.  Head is also wrong for a bed bug.  Thanks for giving it a shot though.

[Tracy]

I got a response after posting on the "BugGuide", run by Iowa State University, and while a threat to some plants, doesn't seem to be identified as a palm pest:

Leptoglossus zonatus is a species of leaf-footed bug, a type of true bugs. It is found throughout much of South America, Central America, Mexico, and the southwestern United States. The bug is two centimeters in length, gray in color, with a zigzagging whitish band across its back and two distinctive yellowish spots on its anterior pronotum, the identifying characteristic for the species.^[1]

This leaf-footed bug is one of the two major pests of physic nut plants in Nicaragua.^[2] In Honduras, where the bug is known commonly as chinche patona (large-legged bug), it is a minor garden pest.^[3] It is a pest of many crops in Brazil and it may transmit the plant pathogen Herpetomonas macgheei, a trypanosomatid protozoan.^[3] It breeds in pomegranate and desert willow trees, and the gregarious bright orange nymphs aggregate there.^[3] It is a serious pest of satsuma oranges in Louisiana, causing damage by feeding and by transmitting the pathogenic yeast Nematospora coryli.^[1]

Biological pest control agents found to be effective against this insect include the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana.

[Josh-O]

don't bring them over to my garden

[quaman58]

You've got a real "wild kingdom" over there Tracy. Interesting looking critter. I've had occasional infestations of a somewhat similar looking (though not the same) bug called  Fuller's rose weevil. Despite their name, they like palms just fine, although fortunately dining on leaflets only.

[Tracy]

5 hours ago, quaman58 said:

I've had occasional infestations of a somewhat similar looking (though not the same) bug called  Fuller's rose weevil. Despite their name, they like palms just fine, although fortunately dining on leaflets only.

Given the progress into our area of the S. American Palm Weevil, you can understand my paranoia when I saw this "bug" which had apparently come off such a prized palm.  I had never seen this bug before.  Over the years, my biggest irritant has been grasshoppers chomping on my palms... well those scale and mealy bugs.  I'll have to look up that Fuller's rose weevil, so that at least when I see it.