Stink bugs are "new"...and "newsworthy"?

[SoCalDem]

MSNBC is "featuring" them, and yet I am 61+, and I vividly recall these creatures being all over the place when I was a kid..

and of course the "host-in-a-snazzy suit" is asking the expert "what is their personality", and asks if we would prefer "100 stink bugs or 5 bedbugs":wtf:

[Poll_Blind]

1. Beats talking about our kids coming home in boxes from Afghanistan.

Or so they wager.

PB

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. I remember them also.

[otohara]

3. I've Seen Them in Japan

they must not like dry air and altitude, I've never seen one in colorado

[kirby]

4. You must be really young...

because the brown marmorated stink bug (different than the green one) has only been around since the late 1990s. In the past year or so they are rapidly increasing in numbers because they have no known natural predator.

[MineralMan]

8. There's more than one kind of beetle called a stink bug. See my

post below for the one people are probably thinking of. The one in your photo is an invasive species. The common one many of us grew up knowing is a native. Common names for insects are pretty useless.

[Ruby the Liberal]

12. "invasive species"

What does that mean, and how do they get into the house without coming through an open window or door? Can they get in via squeezing through the seam between the screen and window? Because that is what they seem to be doing.

[MineralMan]

13. It means they're not native to this country, but were imported, somehow

into the US. Typically, they do not have existing predators here, so they flourish and become pests.

[Ruby the Liberal]

15. They are a PITA.

Thanks for the explanation.

As far as predators, my cat swats at them until they are dead and then I pick them up with a tissue and flush them. :D

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. These ^^ keep getting into my house and I don't know how

They just show up on the inside of the screens.

I have had about 10 of them this year.

[MineralMan]

5. The stink bugs I was familiar with as a child (and adult) on

the West Coast and desert West are a completely different group:



The pinacate beetles, in the genus eleoides were our stink bugs. They'd stand on their heads and emit an acrid odor.



The ones being discussed in the article in the OP are another genus altogether.

[left coaster]

7. That's the little stinker I know and love! :)

I grew up just outside of L.A., and these guys were ALL over the fields we kids used to play in.. I'm smiling just remembering..

[ThomWV]

6. A friend our our's home has been infested with them this past summer

and they are not normally common here.

[bulloney]

9. Stink bugs? Is this another story about teapartiers?

[eyeofdelphi]

11. yeah they're a problem

i grew up in virginia and just moved back last year. i have never seen so many of the damned things! they're everywhere. you can't crack your car windows, everytime you open your door a couple fly in, they're a few on the ceiling and the walls, there's about 15 in my living room curtain right now. my boyfriend sucks them up with the vaccuum but they just keep coming back.
from what i understand these type of stickbugs are from asia and although they made it over here, none of their natural predators did. so their population is getting out of control.

[stuntcat]

14. we have gazillions! the flat ones, I love them :)

Every year we have them, somehow they make their way into the house and I have to trap them and take them back out.
I didn't know brown ones were invasive, most of the ones I've trapped this year look like the pictures I just looked up!!! :( I need to kill them? Kill the little stinkies? :cry:

[SoCalDem]

16. We use to have lots of roly polies, but in the last few years..NONE!

and pincher-bugs too.. When the bugs disappear ...well :scared:

[stuntcat]

17. I'm careful with roly polies

I still see them when I dig around. It's hard to watch out for each of them when I'm gardening, but I try. They're like tiny dinosaurs, I love them :loveya:

[Cirque du So-What]

18. I know the beastie in the bottom photo as an 'earwig'

so named because of the mistaken notion that they would crawl inside your head and latch onto your brain with that rear-end 'pincher,' which doesn't serve any pinching function whatsoever. THIS is what I call a 'pinching bug':



BTW, those pinchers can't do any damage to human flesh. They're mostly for show and for jousting matches with other male beetles.