That's right, an oncopeltus fasciatus, the large milkweed bug. Thanks to Thingfish23 over at Taming of the Band-Aid for the correct identification!
They belong to the Seed Bug family, Lygaeidae, and are considered to feed mainly on milkweed seeds by inserting a beak into the seed and injecting an enzyme to aid in digestion. The toxins contained in milkweed do not affect them, but ingesting them results in the bugs becoming unpalatable to potential predators. They occur throughout most of North America. The bug often appears in large numbers near buildings in a similar fashion to the related boxelder bug, for which it is often mistaken. It is roughly half an inch in length. (daylilies.org)
I guess thy're not hurting anything, but they also don't seem to be helping anything. I don't know of any milkweed around here. I wonder why they like my yard.
Are you interested in having milkweed? Monarch's come in droves to mine and they are such a fun thing to watch. If so I have seedlings I can send you! That's the only problem, it is a very healthy reseeder, but when the monarch's come they'll eat it up!
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