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The garden is in Los Angeles County. The bugs appeared around the beginning of April.

Attached are images. One is a close-up. One is some more bugs near a nickel to get a sense of their size.

I have caught several of the bugs in the act of eating my strawberries. They don't bother them when they are green, but as soon as they start turning red, the bugs just start carving out holes in the sides of the strawberries.

I have also observed them crawling on my bok choy, which has holes in the leaves, but I'm not entirely sure it is them eating the bok choy. We also recently had ear wigs we are taking care of with traps, which may be what was eating the bok choy.

I have also observed them just running along the sides of my planter box in straight lines. They are fairly fast moving when on the wood.

I've checked out several search results on "<#> common strawberry pests", but none of them appear to look anything like these.

Anyone have any information or any leads to go on?

nickel for scale close-up

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  • My guess would be fungus gnats, though I may well be wrong.
    – Sam
    Apr 27, 2021 at 10:07
  • Thanks for your comment. Those do look similar, but I cannot find any with wings. I think they are more likely springtails.
    – subwaywanderer
    May 2, 2021 at 3:12

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It could be a springtail. Never seen them eating strawberries though.

enter image description here

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  • Ahh, I think you are right. They do jump like it says. And I had a pea plant near by (a thing they apparently like) that I pulled out because it was getting fungus (a thing they apparently eat). Maybe when I pulled that out they all jumped off and then had to find something to eat and went after the strawberries. Their numbers have also dwindled quite a bit now that the pea plant is gone and the weather is starting to heat up and the soil dry out, so I think that makes sense. Thanks for you help!
    – subwaywanderer
    May 2, 2021 at 3:10

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