18 October 2016
It’s warm today but as soon as it turns cold brown marmorated stink bugs (Halyomorpha halys) will try to squeeze into every crack in our buildings. They’re everywhere. What can we do?
Ever since these Asian bugs first appeared in North America (in Allentown, PA in 1998) we’ve wondered how to control them. They destroy crops, especially fruits and tomatoes, so USDA has been studying them for a while. Do our native species eat them or must we import a stink bug predator from Asia?
To tease out the answer, researchers at USDA-ARS Appalachian Fruit Research Station in West Virginia placed stink bug egg masses near potential predators and documented what happened.
Some of the egg masses disappeared. It turns out that katydids eat the eggs completely, shell and all!
Other egg predators include crickets, ground beetles, earwigs and jumping spiders.
Jumping spiders pick up the entire egg mass, flip it over and suck out the eggs’ contents from the underside. (This is a “daring jumping spider” … cool name, eh?)
Moral of the story: If you don’t use pesticides, native insects and spiders will do the work for you. Goodbye, stink bugs!
Read more about the study and watch the videos here in Entomology Today.
p.s. In 2018 an alien stinkbug predator showed up on its own!
(photo credits:
Stink bug on leaf by Kate St. John
Stink bug eggs by David R. Lance, USDA APHIS PPQ, Bugwood.org
Katydid, Microcentrum species from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original
Daring jumping spider photo by Joseph Berger, Bugwood.org)
Yay predators! I’ve seen a couple of BMSBs on my window (outside) this fall, but nothing like before. But I haven’t gotten rid of my stinkbug bath (read drowning pool) yet ?
Yesss!! Another reason to love Katydids!!
The spiders in the space between my windows and storm windows get the stinkbugs, every one of them. Its fun to watch the spiders wrap them up in silk webbing.
Omg-me too! Normally I hate spiders. I nicknamed her (spider) toots!!!! She had 4 in a cocoon. She is one badass spider
A grackle flock comes by and eats the swarm off of my house every year. My chickens love them too!