The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, shown here on our home office window screen.
Introduced accidentally from Asia, it was first noticed in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 2001. Since then it has spread, at least as far as our house. And they sure do seem to like it here. I counted fifty on the house the other day without really even trying (there are several crawling about the window screens as I type).
And I've fed a couple dozen to the fish in our pond over the past week, who seemed to enjoy them. Note that when catching them you need to ensure the tail end is pointing away from you. As that is from whence the stinky stuff they are named for emanates [personal experience].
(If you squeeze them you can see it squirt out!)
((No, squinting your friends would not be nice!))
(((Fun perhaps, but not nice.)))
Fun fact: their natural predator in their home range is the coolly named Samurai Wasp. Alas, we don't seem to have any of those around. Of course, since they are the size of pencil point it would be hard to notice them if they were. If we lived in New York we could get some, for a donation of $100 (seems a bit of a scam for farmers to ask people to pay for the opportunity to help eliminate a pest for said farmers; maybe I could charge people to come feed them to our fish ...).
🐝🐛🦋🐞🐜🦟🦗🕷🦂
You can find all of the Yard Critter posts listed here.
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