The brown marmorated stink bug is a notorious invader, causing headaches for farmers globally. This insect has made a name for itself by infesting a wide range of crops, from fruits to vegetables. It’s also a nuisance for homeowners in winter. Let’s take a closer look at 6 interesting facts about this invasive species and the challenges it poses to agriculture.
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Family: Pentatomidae
Genus: Halyomorpha
Brown marmorated stink bug popular stink bug
The brown marmorated stink bug is a member of the family Pentatomidae. Like other stink bug species, it has a “shield” shaped body (pentagonal body shape). The adult has a size of about 14-17 mm in length and 8 mm in width, which is roughly the size of a human thumbnail.
Its upper body is brown, black, and gray with lots of little holes on top. Underneath, it’s white with sometimes gray or black marks. Its eyes are dark reddish-brown, and its legs are brown with faint white lines. You can easily recognize this bug by looking at its abdomen’s sides, which have light and dark bands that stand out more than other stink bugs. Its other key features are two white bands on each antenna and dark bands on the wing tips.
Habitat
The brown marmorated stink bug is native to Eastern Asia, including Japan, China, and Taiwan. However, it made its way to the United States, first showing up in Pennsylvania back in 2001. Since then, it’s spread out across Pennsylvania and settled in around 15 other states. People have spotted it in even more states from time to time.
You can run into these bugs in lots of places, like Michigan, Oregon, New York, Indiana, New Jersey, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois, and Minnesota. In California, they can be found in Solano County and some parts of Southern California, like Pasadena. They’ve even made their way into 4 Canadian provinces.
These smelly bugs live in many environments, such as ornamental plants, fruit trees, and veggies.
Behavior
Like other types of stink bugs, brown marmorated stink bugs release a stinky odor from glands on their belly when they feel threatened or get squished. This smell is often compared to cilantro, wood, oil, burnt rubber, or even a skunk’s spray. It’s their way of defending themselves. The smell usually sticks around for a few hours. These bugs can also fly and communicate through vibrations.
In the fall, they look for warm spots to hibernate, usually recreational vehicles, cargo containers, and your houses. Once inside, they let out a scent that attracts more stink bugs, leading to a big stink bug infestation in your house. They’re not harmful or poisonous to people or pets, but their fluids can irritate your skin and eyes, and their droppings might leave stains.
The best way to deal with them is to prevent them from entering your house. You can do this with some tips for avoiding and removing stink bugs for good!
Diet
The brown marmorated stink bug eats lots of different plants, like fruits, crops, veggies, and ornamental plants in gardens. Its diet includes apples, figs, peaches, apricots, oranges, mulberries, and persimmons. It also likes tomatoes, beans, soybeans, corn, and more. Hazelnuts and almonds, which are valuable nuts, are also its favorite.
Apart from these crops, these insects also feed on ornamental and landscape plants like ash, princess tree (Paulownia), and maple. They can bite into the stems and leaves of plants and even puncture the bark of some trees.
These stink bugs have a wide range of predators. Big ones like mantids and wheel bugs, as well as smaller ones like predatory stink bugs, beetles, and spiders, all like to eat them. These enemies go after both young bugs and adults, which helps keep their numbers down.
On top of those predators, there are also parasitoids like Trichopoda pennipes. These parasites lay their eggs inside the stink bug eggs, and when they hatch, they feed on the stink bug larvae, reducing their numbers even further.
Crickets, earwigs, ground beetles, katydids, lady beetles, ants, assassin bugs, jumping spiders, and even lesser-known insects like lacewings, minute pirate bugs, and damsel bugs also play a role in keeping the brown marmorated stink bug population under control by eating the bugs.
Life cycle
After hibernating through the winter, adult brown stink bugs wake up in the spring, usually around early May. They spend about two weeks eating before they mate, and then the females start laying eggs.
These eggs are roundish and either white or very light green. They’re laid in bunches of about 28 eggs under leaves from June to August. A single female can lay nearly 500 eggs! These eggs hatch in four to seven days.
The baby stink bugs that hatch out of these eggs have an oval shape and don’t have wings yet. They’re tiny, ranging from 2.5 to 12 millimeters long. When they first hatch, they’re usually half black and half orangish-red. As they grow and molt, they turn brown to black, with dull red bands and yellow spots. They also have red eyes and white bands on their legs.
These nymphs go through five stages of growth called instars. Between each stage, they shed their old skin (molt). It takes about a week for each stage to complete, and after the fifth stage, they become adults. You’ll start to see new adult stink bugs popping up around late July or August. In Ohio, usually, there’s just one group born each year, but in warmer places, they can have several generations in a year.
The brown marmorated stink bug has a lifespan of approximately 6 – 8 months.
They cause damages
The brown marmorated stink bug is a big problem for farmers and gardeners. They feed on over 60 different types of plants and cause serious economic threats in 10 states and nuisance problems in 21 other states. When these stink bugs eat, they stick their mouth into the fruit, leaves, or stems, causing damage. The damage can be mild or really bad, depending on how long the bugs stay in one place.
For example, in peppers and tomatoes, they leave behind white or yellow marks on the skin where they eat. In corn, they poke holes in the kernels, making them look weird or not grow properly. Beans and okra can get scars or look deformed from their feeding. Blueberries might not be as sweet if the bugs have been munching on them, and hazelnuts can end up with empty spots early on and weird bumpy parts later. The bugs even leave marks known as “cat-facing” on tree fruits.
Reference: Wikipedia
