Green Stink Bug

Fascinating facts about the Green Stink Bug

• At just 13 to 18 mm long, the green stink bug packs a shield-shaped body. Its bright green shell is edged with narrow bands of yellow, orange or red. A quick glance at the antennae reveals three black outermost segments, the key to telling it apart from its cousin Nezara viridula.
• The green stink bug's home stretches from New England down to Florida, then stops at the 98° W longitude line, with only scattered sightings farther west. Along the Pacific, it shows up from San Diego up to Seattle, but never dominates the interior. Early in the season it prefers wild hosts like black cherry, elderberry, mimosa and pecan, using these edge habitats as safe nurseries before moving onto farms.
• Adults emerge in early September, seeking shelter before the first frosts. By early October they mate, and eggs appear mid-to-late October, hatching into nymphs by late October or early November. In warm summer fields the species can squeeze out two or three generations, a rate that climbs to the same pace in laboratory rooms kept at 26 °C.
• Female green stink bugs lay their keg-shaped eggs in neat double rows, usually twelve or more per line, forming almost cylindrical clusters. Most clusters contain 14 eggs, though observations show a low of nine eggs in a clutch out of 77 recorded cases. The eggs change colour from light green to yellow to pink as they near hatching.
• Regarded as an economically important pest in the United States, the green stink bug damages a wide range of crops. Adults cause "catfishing" in peaches, create internal warts in cotton, trigger green stem syndrome in soybeans, and leave white spongy spots on tomatoes, while nymphs add dimples to fruit surfaces. Natural enemies like the tachinid fly Trichopoda pennipes and parasitic wasps keep numbers in check, and the bug's own pheromone methyl (E,Z,Z)-2,4,6-decatrienoate can be exploited to lure them away from fields.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Green Stink Bug

In the warm, languid air of a summer's day, the Green Stink Bug moves with a quiet purpose, its slender legs carrying it effortlessly across the tender shoots of its host plant. As it navigates this verdant world, the bug's vibrant green carapace seems to glow with an inner light, a perfect camouflage that allows it to blend seamlessly into its surroundings, even as its very presence is a reminder of the intricate, often unseen, drama that unfolds in the natural world. With each delicate step, the Green Stink Bug embodies the subtle, unassuming beauty of a life lived in harmony with the rhythms of the earth.

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