Information About Green Stinkbugs
by William Campbell,
Stink Bug Expert
People who are not accustomed to the life cycle of insects usually assume that they hatch from their eggs fully emerged. This is not the case at all. For example, the green stink bug goes through several stages before it is considered an adult insect.
The maternal bug lays the eggs which will eventually turn into adults. She lays these eggs on the underside of a leaf that she hopes will provide adequate nutrition when the young insects, known as nymphs, finally hatch.
Most of the nymphs are left on their own, but entomologists have observed at least one species that exhibited maternal traits and the parent stuck around and offered some care to her offspring.
When most insects hatch, they are in a larval stage, but this is not the case with the stink bug. When it comes out of the egg, it actually looks like a tiny version of the parent bug.
This does not mean that the young green stink bug is fully formed. It still has some growing up to do. When it hatches, the nymph is small and it also lacks sex organs and it does not yet have developed wings.
During the nymph phase, they will stay very close to their siblings. They usually do not leave the leaf that the eggs were laid on, often huddling on top of their discarded eggs.
The youngsters will go through five metamorphoses before they have reached adulthood. The average life cycle is usually about two months and the adult phase usually occurs during the autumn months.
Although not harmful to humans, the stink bug eats vegetation and is providing quite a bit of trouble for farmers who raise crops. The biggest problem the farmers are facing is that these pests have very few natural predators.
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