It’s spring, and with every spring comes the Jadera bug. The Jadera bug, also known as the red-shouldered bug, the golden rain-tree bug, or the soapberry bug is a species of true bug that lives throughout the united states and South America. It feeds on the seeds within the soapberry plant family and is known to rapidly adapt to feeding on particular hosts.
Every spring hordes of these small insects appear and cover the exterior walls of homes, and can be identified just from their description. These small black and red insects emerge in great numbers for a few weeks to a month every spring. And though they can be daunting to look at, many residents fear of them are untrue or unscientific.
We have two species of Jadera bugs in Florida, but the one that is much more common is Jadera haematoloma. Jadera bugs can be confused with the boxelder bug, but they are different species in the same insect family. Jadera haematoloma is present throughout most of Florida (except in parts of the Panhandle), but here in Central Florida, they are most often noticed in early spring, when they can occur in great numbers. The adult is 9.5 to 13.5 mm in length and mostly black (except for its ‘red shoulders’). The immature insect, or nymph, is mostly red with black legs and antennae. Reports showed breeding populations to be present in Florida, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Arizona, California, Alabama, Illinois, North Carolina, Missouri, Colorado, Iowa, as well as Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland
Jadera bugs feed exclusively on seeds, which means that they do not damage structures, plants in your landscape and they do not bite or vector diseases. When squashed, they can stain hands and clothes red. But other than that, they are harmless.
If you have a golden rain tree or chinaberry tree on your property you are probably very familiar with these insects because the seeds from those trees are by far their favorite food. Both of these trees are invasive, so if you remove trees like this from your landscape and clean up all of the fallen seeds, the numbers of Jadera bugs will decrease over time.
Residents will often see the insects covering an exterior wall, sidewalk, lawn area or tree trunk, but in reality, the insects are searching for those golden rain tree seeds.
