General

• Pest Identification

Insects and Spiders

• Ants
  Ants have a slender pedicel (“waist”), which is typical in suborder Apocrita, but ants can be distinguished from wasps by their elbowed antennae. These small insects are usually black, brown, or reddish, and they live in colonies with well-defined castes that typically comprise a worker caste of sterile females and a reproductive caste of winged males and females.
• Termites
  Every evening at sunset, from the middle of August to October and peaking at the beginning of September, reproductive Pacific Dampwood Termites seem to flutter everywhere on Southern Vancouver Island; but they are particularly numerous in wooded areas. This one landed at the base of an old Douglas-Fir tree, dropped its wings and started poking around at every crevice on the bark, until it finally found the right one and disappeared in it. The tree was littered by scores of broken-off termite wings.
• Fleas
• Cockroaches
  Cockroaches are usually dark brown or reddish in color and have flattened oval bodies and long swept-back antennae. The head is usually concealed by the pronotum which extends far forward. When wings are present, they are held flat over the back of the cockroach, overlapping one another.
• Wasps
• Beetles
• Hornets
  Black with white markings on the head, thorax, and the last few segments of the abdomen (male with white on the first abdominal segment). Wings smoky. Nests are built above ground in trees, bushes, and other protected places. Adults are common on flowers where they drink nectar. Adults feed pre-chewed insects to larvae.
• Yellowjackets
  Yellow Jackets are normally found in meadows and edges of forested land, usually nesting in ground or at ground level in stumps and fallen logs. Adults eat nectar, larva pre-chewed insects captured from adults.
• Moths
• Springtails
• Aphids
  Ants generally live underground or in dead wood, but habitat may vary with genus and species. Food choice depends on particular genus and/or species. Many ants are predators or scavengers while others “milk” aphids and other insects for their sweet secretions, or cultivate fungus on cut leaves.

Animal Control

• Coyotes
  Forehead low and sloping; genial comb with 7-8 sharp teeth, the first tooth about equal in length to the second. Common on cats and dogs; also occurs on coyotes, foxes, rabbits, rats, humans. Adults feed on blood of the host.

Rodent Control

• Rodents
• Mice
• Rats
  Rats are mammals which belong to the rodent family having large incisor teeth that are continually growing necessitating gnawing to prevent the teeth from overgrowing. The word ‘rodent’ is derived from the Latin word ‘rodere’ which means ‘to gnaw’.