New Infestation of Small Insects

Over the past few days, I noticed a growing infestation of very small insects on the porch, retaining wall, and house on the south facing side. At first I thought they were ants, until I took a closer look and noticed they were much faster and crawled away as I approached. The lengths range from 0.5mm to 2mm and there are thousands of them on the back porch.

Last week I spread about 1.5 cubic meters of fine mulch in the flower beds surrounding the house and thought these critters might have come with the mulch. However, I didn't see any in or around the rest of the garden area where I put the new mulch. The only location is the area of the back porch.

I attached photos of some and would appreciate if anyone could help identify the insects and recommend a treatment to get rid of them.

These are on the side of my metal garden shed. The largest insect in the middle is about 2mm long.



Here are three enlarged photos of the insects showing the distinctive markings on the back.

 

@MikeK
We used to call them thunder flies and get large numbers on the tents when camping with the scouts; never used to do anything about them though.
Unless they are causing a paticular problem I'd leave them alone, they'll be gone in a few weeks.
As you have decent photographs you could post on https://www.ispotnature.org/
Searching for Thunder Fly gets https://www.ispotnature.org/search?query=thunder fly which may be of use.
RHS call them thrips Thrips / RHS Gardening

 

I thought the first picture showed a couple of weevils as well as the bigger insect in the centre.

 

Thank you, Nigel! Since I don't know what they are, I don't know if they are doing any harm to my lawn or garden. I'll look at the two sites you provided. Google image search wasn't very helpful since most of the recommendations were for larger beetles.

@pete, the first photo shows a wider view of the insects. The other three photos were enlargements of similar photos and show insects of similar sizes as those in the first photo.

 

Its just that top right appears to be a different shaped insect to the one in the middle

 

I might be wrong, but I think they are the same type of insect at different stages of growth.

@NigelJ, I looked at images of thunderflies. Unless the insects in my garden undergo a significant change as they mature, I don't think they are thunderflies. None of them have wings (yet), and crawl around very fast.

 

I think the term Thunderflies could be a bit misleading as I know people who refer to flying ants as thunder flies.

If they did come from the mulch they are most likely to be insects that live on rotting vegetation or bark and not likely to be a problem.
They could just be using the wall to warm themselves up.

 

Thunder flies was a generic term used for any small dark insect that appeared arond this time of year in numbers.

 

I published a 14-second unlisted YouTube video showing some of the insects on my porch. There is a 1 Euro coin for reference.

 

I hadn't spotted you are in Germany.

 

The best I can do is what I included in the first post of this thread. The little things move too fast and apparently don't like to be photographed.

 

The video was not intended to provide any detail for identification, but hopefully give an indication of scale. I was going to use a £1 coin as a reference, but I couldn't find my UK stash.

They don't like the wasp and hornet spray, so I have a few casualties to use in a photo lineup if I can find my macro lens.

 

I would post the pictures on ispot or the German equivalent and see if anyone there can give you an id.

 

You could also try this site....Wildlife and Nature in France
Chris is very knowledgeable. Just don't mention that you've harmed any of them. He'd happily see the human race wiped out but does get stroppy when 'wildlife' is endangered

 

I think they are one of the many shield bugs family.