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Aphid Life Cycle: 4 Life Stages of a Pest

September 25th, 2009 Posted in Ornamental & Lawn Pests

There are over 4000 species of aphids throughout the world. There are about 1350 different species in the U.S. alone, eating anything from home gardens to large farm fields. So how is it they’ve gotten to be so numerous?

Aphids have become diverse, with each species living on or eating off of something different. There are soybean aphids, green peach aphids, and even cotton aphids.
Their short lives consist of the:

1. Nymph stage
2. Adult stage
3. Reproduction
4. Winged stage

Nymph stage

The youth stage, or nymph stage, begins with aphids being born from eggs in groups ranging from 20-30 . The numbers are smaller once temperatures warm up.

Nymphs greatly resemble the adults, with size being the most noticeable difference.

The nymph will go through several ecdyses (molts) before becoming an adult. Finding the shells from these molts is a sign of a growing infestation problem. If you notice signs of infestation, be sure to kill the bugs safely.

Adult stage

After the molts, aphids reach adult stage. There is no pupal stage.

Development to the adult stage can take as little as a week. Their total lifespan is generally only a month.

Males are only produced in the fall for mating purposes. Only females are born during the summer months.

Reproduction

The reproductive cycle of aphids is complicated, involving the following steps:

1. Females are born from eggs in the early spring.
2. Upon reaching maturity, reproduction occurs using a process called parthenogenesis, during which the female will create smaller copies of herself.
3. Aphids can produce 5 offspring or more every day. Within their lifetime, one aphid can create over 100 offspring.
4. After a time, aphids will create winged offspring (also female). These will fly to different hosts and begin reproducing again.
5. In the fall, males are produced. The males fertilize eggs from the females.
6. These eggs will mature over the cold winters to be born as new females in the spring.

Aphids also begin growing before birth. In fact, a nymph will begin to develop before it’s mother is born, i.e. while it’s still in grandmother.

Winged Stage

Winged aphids are produced throughout the year, when it is time to move to a new host.

To survive the winter, winged aphids are also produced before winter to return to an overwintering place , generally a tree or perennial plant.

Winged aphids don’t use direct flight, meaning they are generally carried on wind currents to new sources of food.

The aphids will have 2 pairs of wings: a larger and a smaller. Both are transparent.

So there you have it, the lifestyle of the aphid. If you didn’t think much of them before, remember, the French naturalist Reaumur said that if all the descendants from one aphid in one summer were arranged in French military formation (four abreast), the line would be longer than the circumference of the equator.