At first I thought it was a wooly aphid so I looked it up and it didn’t look right. Then I thought maybe it was a mealy bug so I looked that up. Nope… but it did send me down the right track. This is the larval stage of the Mealy Bug Destroyer. It’s a species of ladybug and a predator of mealy bugs, aphids, soft scale insects, thrips, mites and cockroach eggs. You can see the aphids that it’s after in the picture as well. They’re out of focus but they’re the brownish-black bugs in front of the Mealy Bug Destroyer Larvae.

Then I saw a picture of it’s adult form online and I realized I had taken a picture of one of them earlier that day on one of my Mexican Butterfly Milkweeds. A tiny black beetle with an orangish head and posterior. I didn’t even know Mealy Bug Destroyers existed till about 20 minutes ago. It’s common in Texas and all over the US. Here’s the adult stage. I’ll try and get a clearer picture tomorrow because it’s dark out now.

I actually planted the milkweed to attract oleander aphids as a food source for ladybugs. Oleander aphids stick to oleander and milkweed so there’s no worry about the aphids spreading to the rest of your garden. I guess it’s working.