Behavior
The brown marmorated stink bug is an agricultural pest that can cause widespread damage to fruit and vegetable crops. In Japan it is a pest to soybean and fruit crops. In the U.S., the brown marmorated stink bug feeds, beginning in late May or early June, on a wide range of fruits, vegetables, and other host plants including peaches, apples, green beans, soybeans, cherry, raspberries, and pears. It is a sucking insect, a "true bug", that uses its proboscis to pierce the host plant in order to feed. This feeding results, in part, in the formation of dimpled or necrotic areas on the outer surface of fruits, leaf stippling, seed loss, and possible transmission of plant pathogens.
The brown marmorated stink bug is more likely to invade homes in the fall than others in the family. The bug survives the winter as an adult by entering houses and structures when autumn evenings become colder. Adults can live from several months to a year. They will enter under siding, into soffits, around window and door frames, or any space which has openings big enough to fit through. Once inside the house, they will go into a state of hibernation. They wait for winter to pass, but often the warmth inside the house causes them to become active, and they may fly clumsily around light fixtures.
The odor from the stink bug is due to trans-2-decenal and trans-2-Octenal. The smell has been characterized as a "pungent odor that smells like cilantro."
The stink bug's ability to emit an odor through holes in its abdomen is a defense mechanism meant to prevent it from being eaten by birds and lizards. However, simply handling the bug, injuring it, or attempting to move it can trigger it to release the odor.
Read more about this topic: Brown Marmorated Stink Bug
Famous quotes containing the word behavior:
“There is a parallel between the twos and the tens. Tens are trying to test their abilities again, sizing up and experimenting to discover how to fit in. They don’t mean everything they do and say. They are just testing. . . . Take a good deal of your daughter’s behavior with a grain of salt. Try to handle the really outrageous as matter-of-factly as you would a mistake in grammar or spelling.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“School success is not predicted by a child’s fund of facts or a precocious ability to read as much as by emotional and social measures; being self-assured and interested: knowing what kind of behavior is expected and how to rein in the impulse to misbehave; being able to wait, to follow directions, and to turn to teachers for help; and expressing needs while getting along with other children.”
—Daniel Goleman (20th century)
“Understanding child development takes the emphasis away from the child’s character—looking at the child as good or bad. The emphasis is put on behavior as communication. Discipline is thus seen as problem-solving. The child is helped to learn a more acceptable manner of communication.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)