Can anything stop this stink bug?
Oh what, it doesn’t look so bad?
Think again.
The brown marmorated stink bug is a fearsome invader … a relentless force ... … wreaking havoc on fields and orchards across the country.
These stink bugs are originally from Asia - but probably made it to the U.S. as stowaways in shipping containers a few decades ago.
Marmorated, by the way, means marbled - see that pattern on their backs?
They have a huge appetite - eating just about any kind of fruit or vegetable out there.
They use this - a long proboscis - to pierce the skin.
It makes a tiny hole.
Dainty eater, you might think?
Nope.
Underneath, it’s squirting in chemicals to dissolve the fruit.
Then it sips up the juices, like a smoothie.
The fruit looks okay on the outside, but now, it’s ruined, rotting on the inside.
Stink bugs can even pierce the hard shell of a hazelnut.
Just squish ‘em, you think?
Yeah, you don’t want to do that.
They genuinely stink.
When disturbed, they can release an olfactory bomb from small glands.
The smell?
Well, some people say it’s like dirty socks… or rotting cilantro.
These stink bugs have spread to 44 states now.
And oh yeah, in the winter, they might just show up in your house, where it’s warm.
What could possibly stand up to them?
Hello, samurai wasp.
This tiny wasp, also from Asia, is an old enemy of stink bugs.
It unleashes a stealth attack.
A female wasp finds a mass of stink bug eggs ... … then one by one, she lays one of her own inside them.
The parasitic wasp larva grows secretly inside, feasting on a tasty egg breakfast until the developing stink bug is no more.
Then, the grown up wasps chew their way out, nibbling the edges away like fingernail clippings.
In their native range in Asia, 60-90% of stink bug eggs are parasitized in this way, keeping them in check.
So researchers in the U.S. want to recruit the wasps, as long as they don’t become a pest too.
The wasps have already been found in Oregon, so scientists at Oregon State University are studying them as a kind of biological control.
After all, using wasps is targeted, since they primarily go after brown marmorated stink bugs.
Maybe someday, they could release the wasps in places where there are lots of stink bugs.
Today, farmers use pesticides, but that can kill lots of other helpful organisms.
Researchers know that sometimes your enemy’s enemy is your friend.
So soon, the samurai wasp could be doing its part to beat back the stink bug onslaught, one egg at a time.
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