Wanting to start a 2022 identify this insect thread. Let me start it out by asking which ladybug do you want in your garden? This is for practice. @LarryGene is the resident expert on this subject and he can determine who is correct.
For reference
I’m not afraid to be wrong, so I’m going to guess “a hungry one.”
Stink bug, foe
I would say all of them.
I may be more accurate than the current state of computer insect identification apps, although I still welcome members posting the results, as they can provide a lead.
This is the one everyone wants to lure into their garden
Lady bugs have look alikes but this is how you tell the difference What’s the Difference Between Ladybugs and Asian Lady Beetles? - Plunkett's Pest Control
Contrary to what people say the Asian lady beetle still eats aphids but it’s poisonous to pets bites. And congregates in Kansas in large numbers in the fall. Here is more about Lady bugs aka ladybird
Ladybugs Facts, Types, Lifespan, Classification, Habitat, Pictures
I’m curious what this insect might be. I found it on my potted satsuma mandarin. It likes to spin some kind of web on the top or bottom surface of a leaf and then presumably lay eggs and hang out underneath the web. They have wings but seem to be reluctant flyers - more inclined to scurry to the other side of the leaf when disturbed rather than fly away. There’s a lot of pollen in the air at the moment, and the pollen tends to be sprinkled over the surface of the leaves and their webs, so that’s visible in all the pictures.
Sorry, they’re so small it’s hard to get a good photo. Here’s a zoomed in shot of an adult: 
@clarkinks I’ll take the pink spotted lady beetle, thank you!
@ncdabbler Gosh, it’s just too tiny - you did a good job trying to photograph it, though. Are you near enough to visit your local extension entomologist? You could bring them some samples with leaves in a ziploc bag. I’m grabbing at straws here, but you could look through the different Triozidae or even Psylloidea on BugGuide.
The ncdabbler photos contain plenty enough info for an ID. The two insect Families mentioned above have rolled/vertical wing posture more like the cidadas and have antennae that are slightly enlarged at the tips, like butterflies. The ncdabbler insect has a more flat-postured wing and thread-like antennae.
Edit: I can’t readily find it. Will have to be in a family with long threadlike antennae. It would help a lot to know if your insect has one or two pairs of wings; try to capture and refrigerate for better handling.
This one doesn’t seem to be a plant pest per se, but the fly on the left was stalking and seemed to be attacking this miner bee as it re-excavated its burrow (I crushed it by accident while weeding):
The miner bees seem to like my yard and I like it that way, hopefully the fly isn’t trying to parasitize them or something…
What about Psocoptera?That contains booklice, barklice or barkflies.
They have wings but don’t fly,like what was mentioned earlier.
Here is a photo of a bark louse:
@LarryGene thanks for looking! I caught two adults and printed out a millimeter ruler to serve as a background. Here’s my best attempt with my phone camera. They definitely have two pairs of wings.
That’s it, Brady. It was posted in a Houzz topic several years ago and I could not remember the insect type. Thanks for the lead.
Of the Psocoptera, the ncdabbler insect most resembles an “Outer Barklouse”, family Ectopsocidae.
https://bugguide.net/node/view/141062/bgimage?from=24
They feed on a variety of decaying matter. They would not be a pest of citrus, and they may not be responsible for the other insect activity on the mandarin leaves, they would be looking for byproducts of that activity, like ants do with aphids, for example.
Thanks for the pictures of the captured specimens; the two pairs of wings rules out the huge Diptera (fly) Order that have only one pair of wings.
Thanks @LarryGene and @Bradybb, I appreciate your help with IDing these tiny insects! They are in such large numbers on my mandarin tree, that my first assumption was they must be a pest of some kind. I would’ve never guessed they were bark lice from many pictures of their larger cousins - glad to hear they aren’t hurting the tree.
There are many ants on my tree at the moment too, but they seem to be attracted to the flowers. I had a mite infestation on the tree over the winter, so a lot of the older leaves still show signs of that damage. Could the mites’ prior feeding leave a residue that attracts the bark lice? Or maybe they like to eat pollen? We have a nice dusting of that on everything at the moment.
Yes, bark lice do feed on pollen.
Just learned of a bug that resembles it So if you see one with checkered wings make sure you do not kill a
whitefly predator Dicyphus hesperus
(I may buy some of these for indoors , but it is $75 for a population
note other sites may be cheaper, but those sites are not listing there prices)
Noticed this odd leaf curl on my persimmon seedlings… on just a few leaves.
Rolled that curl out and found a bunch of these very small insects in there…
I took a small brush and swept out all I could find and gave them some seven spray…
Hope that does it.
Any idea what that is ? Some kind of sap sucking critter I suppose… just b4 I took that picture he or she was wiggling his or her behind back and fourth…
Picture then smash and in the trash.
I have them here, don’t think they really cause much trouble .
Syrphid flys are their natural predator , so keeping flowers around
That attracts syrphid flys should help .
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