100 Species #32: Rough Stink Bug

[urbpan]

The tree bark camouflage of the rough stink bug (Brochymena arborea) is effective even on my glove. I might never seen this insect if it hadn't flown directly into my body.

The rough stink bug is one of those bugs that even naturalists can call "bug." In other words, one of those in the order hemiptera. Click the "bugs" tag, below, and that should take you to an assortment. Whereas insects such as flies and beetles have mandibles, bugs have a "rostrum" or beak-like set of mouthparts, used for piercing and sucking. The bug order includes plant feeders, like the wcsb, and predators like, well, this one. There are many plant-feeding stink bugs which may not be very welcome in the garden, but this rough stink bug feeds on caterpillars and other insects. I'll have to remember that, and not throw them to the chickens when I find them.

Thanks to badnoodles for identifying this creature to genus. Then I went off on my own and recklessly decided on a species, mainly from cues I picked up on bugguide.net

Comments

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Love the true bugs. So cute! Plant and Tree Hoppers are my favourite :)

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

That's one of the natives, right? Because my parents are living in the middle of the Asian stinkbug invasion down in the MidAtlantic, and it has made me wary of (and thoroughly appalled by) stinkbugs.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Yup, and another species of rough stink bug is used here in comparison to the brown marmorated stink bug: http://entomology.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/brown_Marmorated_Stink_Bug.pdf

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

The brown marmorated stink bug is advancing northward, grossing out everyone along the way. From: http://tinyurl.com/nkexo3
To distinguish them from other stink bugs, look for lighter bands on the antennae and darker bands on the membranous, overlapping part at the rear of the front pair of wings. They have patches of coppery or bluish-metallic colored puntures (small rounded depressions) on the head and pronotum.

After reading about them, I'm getting new window screens.