Tiny terrors making a big stink in the state

It’s not the smell that makes stinkbugs a pest

Don’t look now, but there could be a few more guests in your home than you were planning on.

Exterminators, farmers and scientists are trying to make sense of an influx of stinkbugs, specifically the flat, brown one that was almost unheard of in Connecticut 10 years ago. Today they’re all over the place, and homeowners are wondering what to do about the invaders, about the size of Roosevelt’s head on a dime.

There are 200-plus species of stinkbugs in the United States and most have been here for thousands of years. But there’s one species that’s the new kid on the block, and he’s turning out to be quite the bully: the brown marmorated stinkbug, Halyomorpha halys.

According to entomologist Gale Ridge of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, the invasive plant-sucking insect from Southeast Asia was first seen in the state about a decade ago. At first, sightings were few and far between, but now their numbers are ramping up.

“We’re getting a lot of calls now,” Ridge said. “And we’ll be getting a lot more moving forward.”

Here’s some good news about the little brown invaders. They won’t spread human diseases, unlike deer ticks and mosquitoes. If they’re in your house now, they’ll soon leave to reproduce outdoors. But that’s about it.

What makes the brown marmorated stinkbug so disgusting isn’t its smell nor the fact that they will invade your home like an army of Visigoths. The real threat is that it will harm just about every plant that’s of use to humanity, from corn to cotton, apples to zinnias.

“It’s a real concern for us,” said John Lyman, who heads Lyman Orchards in Middlefield, a farm that

predates the United States of America. “The insect has caused some very significant losses in orchards in the mid-Atlantic states and the Hudson Valley, too — and it’s inching its way here.”

He said that insecticides are all but out of the question for a number of reasons. Because the bug —

and it is a “true bug” to scientists — stands tall on the plant it’s attacking, it would take an especially large dose of chemicals to have any effect.

Lyman said that an application that strong would result in a crop that would be impossible to sell. It also would wipe out any potential natural predators that might be emerging.

Ridge said that it’s only a matter of time before the the fauna here in North America

get wise to the brown marmorated stinkbug and begin seeing it as a meal. In its native range in Asia, there’s a fly that attacks it.

“We do have native predators that are perfectly capable of taking care of this problem,” Ridge said. “It’s just that they haven’t found it yet. But they will — it’ll just take time.”

She said that it’s hoped that a species of wasp will begin attacking the bug, and perhaps a type of fly will learn to lay its eggs in the bug’s eggs. Birds and spiders might offer some relief, too.

Marmorated stinkbugs lay their eggs in clusters of about 25 on the underside of leaves. Eggs are white, spherical and 1 mm in diameter. The bug undergoes five molts on its path to adulthood. Females can lay 400 eggs during the summer and fall. In this part of the country, there’s only one generation a year; warmer states can see two.

It’s also a pretty good flyer as bugs go, extending its range inexorably from

one year to the next. Longhaul trucks are the bug’s best friends.

When cool weather arrives in October, they pack up and head inside your home to spend the winter. They seem to prefer the upper floors, and they like to hang out behind the pictures on your walls.

The insect arrived in the U.S. from China or Korea, probably by hitching a ride on a pallet or a shipping crate. It was first discovered in Allentown, Pa., in 1998 but it quite likely arrived here a few years before that.

With no natural enemies, marmorated stinkbugs quickly spread throughout the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic states and now they’ve been reported in most of the lower 48 states. Experts say it’s only a matter of a few years before nearly all of North America is overrun by the hungry marauders.

So what can you do when you see a division of stinkbugs in your home?

“The simplest thing is to get out the vacuum cleaner,” said Emmett Lee Jr. of ABC Exterminating in Monroe. “Just vacuum them up.”

Lee also advises a careful application of exterior caulk. “You have to seal up every possible entrance,” he said.

Matt Rourke / Associated Press file photo This 2011 photo shows a brown marmorated stinkbug at a Penn State research station in Biglerville, Pa. Researchers say the spread of the stinkbug is significant because of the damage it has caused in mid-Atlantic states.

Matt Rourke / Associated Press A brown marmorated stinkbug’s eggs shown above. The bug, which attacks fruit crops, is native to Asia but began appearing in mid-Atlantic orchards in 2003.