Help Me Identify This Insect
Hi everyone,
I've been relatively busy in my garden and have a lot of things planted up both inside and outside, and am starting to see the first shoots of various plants.
However, I'm having a problem: I bought a twelve-pack of strawberry runners last year, and planted them out in December. They've been well-watered and sheltered from the worst of the cold, but I noticed some of them starting to die off. On a friend's suggestion, I moved the still-healthy ones from a strawberry planter I have in to individual pots. On a whim, I had a look at the root system of one of the dead plants, and found a ton of these scurrying insects on it. I checked the still-healthy plants only to find two of them infected and one still bug-free (so far).
Basics: the planter was on the ground, and the death seems to have gone from the ground up. They had been sitting on a plate which came with the planter, directly on some loose bark of (an) unknown wood(s). I have two potted raspberries on the same bark in a similar location that are fine.
The bugs are tiny, white-brown (they look white on the plant, brown on my gloves), and can hop/fly a far distance (we lost a few while trying to take a photograph). I have checked websites and they don't seem to be similar to any of the usual strawberry pests -- more experienced people than I am may say differently.
I would really like to know what this is, where it's come from (if possible as I suspect the bark might be the culprit), and how to get rid of them (ideally with as little harm to anything else, especially as my cat has taken to eating some of the plants we've got). Thanks for your help :)
Edit: I'm in SE England, just on the outskirts of London city.
Edit 2: They're thrips.
I've been relatively busy in my garden and have a lot of things planted up both inside and outside, and am starting to see the first shoots of various plants.
However, I'm having a problem: I bought a twelve-pack of strawberry runners last year, and planted them out in December. They've been well-watered and sheltered from the worst of the cold, but I noticed some of them starting to die off. On a friend's suggestion, I moved the still-healthy ones from a strawberry planter I have in to individual pots. On a whim, I had a look at the root system of one of the dead plants, and found a ton of these scurrying insects on it. I checked the still-healthy plants only to find two of them infected and one still bug-free (so far).
Basics: the planter was on the ground, and the death seems to have gone from the ground up. They had been sitting on a plate which came with the planter, directly on some loose bark of (an) unknown wood(s). I have two potted raspberries on the same bark in a similar location that are fine.
The bugs are tiny, white-brown (they look white on the plant, brown on my gloves), and can hop/fly a far distance (we lost a few while trying to take a photograph). I have checked websites and they don't seem to be similar to any of the usual strawberry pests -- more experienced people than I am may say differently.
I would really like to know what this is, where it's come from (if possible as I suspect the bark might be the culprit), and how to get rid of them (ideally with as little harm to anything else, especially as my cat has taken to eating some of the plants we've got). Thanks for your help :)
Edit: I'm in SE England, just on the outskirts of London city.
Edit 2: They're thrips.