Found on many pods of my Butterfly weed this morning. I sure hope they are beneficial!

I found the answer. Large milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus. They are plant specific. And since my asclepias has started to over run my lawn and gardens I will consider them beneficial.

They are milkweed bug nymphs. There is s large milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) and a small milkweed bug (Lygaeus kalmii).

Large:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

Small:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

I'm thinking yours might be the large but they're similar.

Cross-posted.

Thank you Sue!

The adults also sometimes like to hang out on daylilies and some people have thought they might do some damage but that is not certain:

http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_d...

The thread "nasty milkweed bugs..." in Pests and Diseases forum

Just posted...

We were having a discussion about how difficult getting milkweeds to grow was for us... down here in the south:
The thread "Milkweed and Monarchs (is this a young monarch)?" in Gardening for Butterflies, Birds and Bees forum

a bug that devours the few seed our plants actually produce... is just what we don't need.

Kill the nasty things... get a pan with a couple inches of water in the bottom...

They are hardly going to make a dent in my seedpod production . This is just one plant and they were only on about five of the pods. I'm sorry you have trouble growing them down there. But I preferred to live and let live In this case

Beautiful plants, jvdubb! Good for you for allowing nature to take its course. All is well in 48036 MI