Insect Picture of the Day

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Jim Phillips sent in this stinkbug picture last Winter when I first put out the call for images. I’m not sure how it got shuffled to the bottom of the pile, but I found it again, so here it is.

Jim titled this picture “Yule Log Bug”, and I like it because it really shows the diversity of stinkbugs. We’ve seen green stinkbugs, and brown ones… and now one that’s both.

I also like the flash reflection here from its eyes… and I still can’t get over the way stinkbugs’ eyes are clear back on their shoulders like that.

Thanks, Jim!

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Jeremiah Tan saw yesterday’s stinkbug picture and sent in this goodie, along with this information:

I’ve recently found this bunch of young ‘uns on the
wall just next to my bathroom window!

Now I now why I keep on getting stinkbugs in my room….

Yes, the reason is clear: It is because you share a bathroom. (Also, because stinkbugs have no sense of personal space.) A word of advice: don’t lend them your hair dryer, you’ll never get it back.

Thanks, Jeremiah!

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Jim Phillips sends in this picture, which by my count, contains 26.5 visible stinkbugs. (Think about it. And then, ewwww.)

I haven’t got anything to say about this pic except that it is way awesome.

But my wife wants to know if “Jim is going to clean the eggs off his screen…? Because, ewwww.“

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Jeremiah has caught the bug photography… uh… bug. Here’s a stink bug out on his lawn.

Lots of interesting bits on a stink bug. I’m always intrigued by their head shape. I keep expecting to see two tiny little eyes up at the front, and then I notice the huge bulging blobs down by his shoulders and realize that if those are his eyes, then what I thought of as the head was really just his big freaking nose.

Okay, that’s gonna give me nightmares.

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We’ve had a couple of stinkbug photos on the site now, but none quite so beautiful as this one sent in by reader Chris Sanner. I am pretty sure this is a jade stinkbug, Banasa euchlora. Chris took this photo in northern Virginia around Thanksgiving of this year. Adult jade stinkbugs overwinter, and if you search the web you’ll see most human interaction with them is in the winter when they come in to get warm.

These little critters are usually found on or near Red Cedar, which is the same color of green with the same color of waxy white specks. The crypsis, or camouflage, is quite astonishing, as you can see from this photo taken by Patrick Coin.

I don’t know if they eat the red cedar or just live on it; all I could find out was that the cedar is their “host plant”. I did find out, however, that their particular mixture of defensive aldehydes smells like “armpit and gasoline“, according to gomichan over on LiveJournal.

I love this picture. I flipped it and cropped it differently (to provide a uniform background). The result is a pretty decent desktop wallpaper. As always, ping me if you want it in a resolution other than 1280×960.

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Reader Tiogshi Laj sends in this photo of a stinkbug taken a couple of months ago.

Stinkbugs come in several varieties, and depending on what kind of agriculture you’re doing they are either welcome friends or disastrous pests. Some species are carnivorous and will keep down your aphid population while many others attack plants, piercing the stalk with their beak to suck out the sap. Interestingly, it seems the actual removal of sap is less injurious to the plant than what they leave behind: they inject digestive juices into the plant with can damage it directly, and possibly worse, their beaks may be contaminated with virii or spores of plant diseases, inoculating the plant with a disease that can then spread to the entire crop.

So, I did some research on stinkbugs and found out two interesting things about their names. The first is about their latin name, family Pentatomidae, which means “five pieces”. Modern scholars don’t know if this is because their antennae have five segments or because their backs are visually divided into five distinct parts.

The second is about their common name. Stinkbugs produce chemicals that, well, stink. Different species make different specific chemical compounds, but they are all in a group known as aldehydes and are typically used as a defensive weapon. These glands are huge, relatively speaking: they can be filled with as much as 5% of the total weight of the bug. The chemicals are pleasant-smelling in very small concentrations (and may be used by the bugs to attract a mate), noxious in higher concentrations and may even be lethal if, for example, the stinkbug manages to get the chemicals onto the face of an attacking bug. I don’t know how common that last is, as it doesn’t look like stinkbugs can squirt their chemicals so much as just dribble them out. It seems the most likely bug to die from stinkbug stink is the stinkbug itself: scientists have learned that if they capture or transport them in an unventilated container, the aldehyde gas can get into their respiratory tract and asphyxiate them.

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This is a stinkbug… or at least it wants to be one when it grows up. It’s a nymph, meaning it will undergo metamorphosis to reach adult stage, but that metamorphosis will only be partial or incomplete. As you can see, it’s already got legs and antennae and the general shape of a stinkbug.

I love the swirling colors on its shell. It will lose this beautiful coloration and become a drab camouflage green during metamorphosis. It will also grow to about the size of a dime; here it is only about 4mm long. (For a size references, the yellow tubing is a heavy-duty electrical extension cord about 1cm in diameter.)

I don’t know if it already has the ability to stink like a stinkbug because I didn’t squash it.