While making rounds in the yard today I pulled up a dandelion seedhead with a profusion of small, dark spots on the stalk.
The spots turned out to be tiny insects, resembling aphids, but very dark in color and making a reddish stain when squashed.
This happened on only one of many (hundreds? thousands??) dandelion seedheads pulled in the last couple of years.
A fairly careful web search of "dandelion parasites" and related keyword combinations produced no hint of what bugs eat dandelions. Does anybody know? They seemed to be confined to the dandelion, with a preference for the seed stalk.
If they're not aphids they might be worth encouraging.
Thanks for reading,
bob prohaska