Opuntia attack!

No, I didn't finally get around to cleaning the leaves out of the cactus bed -- it's the Opuntia that was being attacked, not doing the attacking! The attackers looked like this:

Kinda cute -- as many insect nymphs are -- but still...

***

They were on most of the Opuntia macrorhiza pads:

And in some places there were a LOT of them:

Yikes.

The damage they were doing was quite apparent too:

I first thought that these were the same insects that were attacking the Yucca last year, and had changed hosts...

...after I cut the sickly growth off. (What, you don't leave your prunings on the lawn for a week?)

The new yucca growth is already emerging by the way:

But I digress.

The opuntia bugs are clearly not the same as the yucca bugs, and I didn't notice them last year.

Anybody know what these are? (I haven't Googled yet, so maybe it's obvious?)

In any case I sprayed them with a mixture of soap, alcohol, and peroxide, and that seemed to do the trick -- got rid of 95% of them at least. Another spraying is needed.

Bad bugs!

.