Types of Stink Bugs: What You Should Know
As their name suggests, stink bugs release a foul or stinking smell when they are squashed; a mechanism meant to keep predators away. They belong to the order Hemiptera, and family Pentatomidae.
Stink bugs can do great harm to your garden as they can damage plants while feeding on them. They come in various colors and patterns, so can be identified easily.
Here are the stink bugs you are most likely to encounter in your garden:
Brown marmorated stink bug
They are speckled brown-gray with a white bind on their antenna. They have dark and white bands around the edges of their abdomens, with white markings that look like triangles.
A bug so terrible they turned it into a four-letter word – BMSB – you don’t want to see the marmorated stink bug around! Halyomorpha halys is native to eastern Asia but has traveled the world and established itself throughout Europe, eastern North America, Australia, and Chile by hanging out on imported goods. It’s a highly invasive species that overwinters in structures, so you might find them in your home once it gets cold.
It’s larger than most stink bug species, growing up to 17 millimeters in length. It has a mottled coloration of light and yellow-brown with red stripes and a white band along its legs and on its five-segmented antennae, but its five nymphal stages give it a lot of variation throughout its life cycle. It loves fruit trees and vegetables, making them a problem in many orchards, farms, and backyards. Read more from Epic Gardening…
Marmorated stink bugs love fruits and vegetables, so they can create quite a disaster in your garden. They are also attracted to sweet corn and can easily damage corn fields during an infestation.
Red-shouldered stink bug
These bugs are green with a pink to red stripe on their protonum or shoulder. They may also have a pink marking on the bottom part of their bodies. They can grow up to 1 cm long.
The red-shouldered stink bug is a relatively new pest found on soybean in Ohio. It resembles the red-banded stink bug, which is causing significant concern in southern states. The red-shouldered stink bug, while a concern, does not cause nearly the amount of injury that the red-banded can produce. Adults are green, usually with a red-pink stripe across the protonum, which is basically its “shoulder,” although sometimes this stripe is not as evident. The adults may also have a pink marking on the tip of the triangle (scutellum). There is no spine on its abdomen between the hind legs. Nymphs are mostly white with dark red and black markings on the thorax and colored stripes on the abdomen. Read more from Ohioline…
They feed on juices and a variety of trees and shrubs. They are herbivorous, so you will often find them in weedy habitats.
Green stink bugs
These bugs are on the larger side and can grow up to 19 mm long. As their name suggests they are solid green in color with either yellow spots or a yellow-hued green. This variation depends on whether you are looking at an adult bug or nymph.
The green stink bug feeds on many plants, including native and ornamental trees, shrubs, vines, weeds, and soybean. The preferred hosts are generally wild plants, but as these plants mature these bugs move to soybean.
Green stink bug is a flattened, shield-shaped bug, named for the offensive odor it produces. The adult is bright green and about 2/3 inch (17 mm) long. It is easily distinguished by the triangular-shaped plate that partially covers its wings. The nymphs hatch from clusters of barrel-shaped eggs. They closely resemble the adults throughout their several nymphal stages. However, the nymphs are wingless, black and red in color and lack the triangular plate.
Green stink bug may appear in soybean fields from mid-July through harvest time. Often they are most numerous in the border rows next to weedy or wooded areas. Read more from Purdue University
Green stink bugs suck juices from a variety of agricultural plants like corn, tomatoes, soybeans and also from fruits and seeds.
Stink bugs can cause great damage to your gardens, fields, fruits, and vegetables. Do not hesitate to contact us at Backyard Bug Patrol in case of a stink bug infestation in your Dunkirk, MD home. We are here to help.