Avocado Lace Bugs

Avocado lace bugs, also known as camphor lace bugs, can cause problems on avocado, red bay, and camphor trees, along with azaleas and rhododendrons.

​Native to Florida, Texas, the Caribbean, French Guyana in South America, and eastern coastal Mexico, avocado lace bugs (Pseudacysta perseae) are not a serious problem when found in small numbers. Or where they have no natural predators.

Avocado lace bugs (Forest and Kim Starr) CC BY 2.0 DEED

Avocado lace bug description

Avocado lace bugs get their name because of the lacy venation of their wings, but the way they protect themselves with a lacy cover as they hide on the underside of leaves but be another good reason. That cover is actually the avocado lace bug’s thorax and forewings.

Avocado lace bugs are only 1/16” to 1/12” long, brown, orangish, or black and oval-shaped. They tend to cluster together, creating what looks more like a messy fungal growth than an insect colony. If you look closely, with a hand lens, you would see that avocado lace bugs have a black or brown head or thorax, with white, orange, or brown legs, wing covers, antennae, and abdomen. 

Avocado lace bug nymphs are dark and spiky, with pale legs and antennae. Eggs look like sprinkled black pepper even though they are actually oblong and yellow. The black color comes from the fact that these tiny oblong eggs are smeared with what looks like poop.

Avocado lace bug lifecycle 

Yes. That’s what I said. Poop. Female avocado lace bugs lay their eggs and then smear the area with a sticky, tar-like substance that looks like poop. Under that protective layer, nymphs molt 5 times as they grow before emerging as adults. Avocado lace bugs have several generations each year and all developmental stages can be present at any one time.

Avocado lace bug damage

Avocado lace bugs are sap suckers. As such, they pierce the underside of leaves and siphon away the sugary fluids. This feeding, while trivial in small numbers, can cause stippling. As feeding progresses, other symptoms appear, such as leaf tip burn that looks like salt damage, leaf discoloration, and early leaf drop. Large infestations can result in defoliation, sunburn damage, and reduced fruit production.

As in any case where plant cells are pierced, this feeding also provides points of entry for fungal diseases, such as anthracnose.

Avocado lace bug control

Natural predators should keep avocado lace bug populations in check. These beneficial insects include jumping spiders, lacewing larvae, lady beetles, and predatory mites and thrips, as well as parasitic wasps.

If avocado lace bug populations reach troublesome numbers, keep your trees healthy with a thick layer of mulch, good drainage, and regular irrigation. Insecticidal soaps are somewhat helpful against avocado lace bugs.

Be on the lookout for this pest. If you suspect your tree is hosting avocado lace bugs, contact your local County Extension Office right away. As always, place new plants and bare root trees in quarantine before adding them to your garden.