This year I have noticed an increase in population of stink bugs. I found it really weird when finding an average of 2-3 a day in my house. So I started asking other people about it. They had noticed it as well. I then did some research to find that, the stink bugs that we have had at our house are a species called brown marmorated. The bug has been reported in at least thirty-three states and had an increase in at least eight of those states. Last summer there were major infestations of these brown bugs in homes throughout the mid-Atlantic. The population is only rising and they are spreading across the country. This bug is not from here they have predicted that it came from Asia because they are like hitchhikers they get into backpacks, clothes everything they like to travel. Since they are not from here they have no real predators. Leaving farmers with ruined fruit and vegetable crops, this year alone farmers sprayed up to twenty pesticides trying to produce a salvageable crop, and in some cases that still didn't work. The scientists expect for the population to get worse, they are working to find natural predators from Asia to bring to the United States. Right now they are getting a stink bug killing wasp also known as the trissolcus wasp. They are studying them at a facility in Delaware. It’s a tiny wasp smaller than a pin head and lays its eggs inside the eggs of stink bugs. Thus, killing the stink bug eggs and creating more wasp. They proximate it will take up to two years for the wasp to get released. They are still unsure of what this wasp would do to our agriculture. My only question I am left with is, are these stink bugs as harmful and life threatening as this wasp might be.
I haven't thought in depth about stink bugs as much as you have, but I can definitely assure you that I have learned a lot from this blog. I have heard that they weren't from here though and were from a different country, which I think I recall someone speaking of Asia. It's crazy to think how they just get into backpacks and travel to different countries. I wish we humans could do that. It would be super fun lol. It's not good that they are ruining our crops, because farmers are already having a lot of trouble with the dry weather we have had this year. I don't think they should bring the wasp over here to try and get rid of the stink bugs, because eventually we will have to many of those species of wasp and will want to get rid of them too probably. Maybe the scientist could find a different cure for this problem.
ReplyDeleteDude, I've noticed this, too! When we were striking (taking down) the Haunted House at Tweetsie, I was unscrewing a photo from the wall, and as I removed it, THREE stink bugs crawled out in different directions. I actually gagged.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see that there's an answer for why this is, but I want to know the same answers you do; are they harmful at all?
When you first wrote this, there were no stink bugs in my house. I've now had several encounters with these bugs-without-boundaries, and they have no mercy. I reached to the back of my head the other night and felt the need to drain away into a hole in the floor in order to escape the unknown, insectile creature that I felt in my hand. Upon seeing it was a stink bug, I was simply embarrassed by my squeamishness.
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