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WTF is that: Stink Bug Edition

One minute your house is a perfect example of domestic civilization. Then without so much as an open window, it’s a buzzing mess of arthropods. And in the majority of the U.S., stink bugs are leading the charge.

Aside from invading your home, stink bugs damage our crops and drive up food prices. They threaten destabilization of our ecosystems and have no natural predators. But unless you’re a farmer or sufferer of Entomophobia – fear of insects or bugs – your biggest gripe is probably that they stink when you squish ‘em.

So don’t squish them! Stink bugs are slow, harmless and unlike ladybugs, they are quite willing to be picked up and flushed. Heck, I recently ate one to settle an office bet. (Yes, I’m cool.)

But then I heard about the guy in West Virginia who caught 26,205 stink bugs in a single year. Clearly, this is an invasion deserving of a little more respect. And some space in the WTF category.

(FYI: If you’re just looking for information on how to get rid of stink bugs, skip straight to the bottom. But you’ll miss all the bangarang about a locked-down government facility where scientists are growing tiny, airborne body-snatchers to destroy them.)

Where the F do stink bugs come from?

You know the ladybugs, spiders and stink bugs didn’t apparate into your house and it’s unlikely your cat is smuggling them across the border, but damn if you can deduce the point of entry.

In the old days, when maggots appeared on rotting meat without the presence of flies, they called it “spontaneous generation” or “Aristotelian abiogenesis.” At least until Francesco Redi put gauze over some jars full of dead fish and proved maggots weren’t magical.

Well, it’s the same with your varmints. Though your house appears to be a fortress, the smallest crack on a baseboard or gap in weatherproofing is enough to let the beasts in.

Of course, if you’re inquiring as to where the brown marmorated stink bug hails from originally, that’d be Asia. (More specifically: China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.)  It’s believed the stink bug first penetrated the U.S. by hitching a ride in packing crates. From Asia to Allentown, Pennsylvania, the invader has shown itself to be quite mobile – if uncultivated – in its travel habits, spreading its wings and setting up shop in about 23 states so far, with possible franchises in an additional 13.

Know thy enemy: Halyomorpha halys

Unlike our old friend the house centipede, the stink bug is what we’d call a “true bug.” Of the order Hemiptera, or “half wing,” true bugs have six legs, two pairs of wings – one hard, one soft – and modified piercing and sucking mouthparts. [Insert “sucking mouthparts” joke here.] Hemiptera is a noble family, consisting of assassin bugs, water striders, bedbugs and approximately 50 – 80,000 other species. (If you really want to break it down, there’s an even more specific suborder called Heteroptera consisting of the really snooty, truer bugs.)

Now, before you go killing everything with six legs, remember there are nearly 300 species of stink bug native to the U.S. – each with its own role to play in the ecosystem. Some of them even eat other pests. What makes the brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) different is the fact that, as a foreigner, it has no natural predators to check its numbers. Instead, it just keeps spreading, breeding and eating.

Stink bugs insert their proboscis into plants and suck out the insides like you trying to eat a particularly stubborn Jello shot – you know, if your tongue had four sharp-ass needles and two tubes, one for injecting digestive enzymes and one for slurping it all back up.

In recent years, farmers have claimed “severe losses”  to apple, peach, apricot, pear, blackberry, tomato, corn, soybean, lima bean and pepper crops. But as I said before, it’s the stink bug’s stink that raises the hackles of the everyman.

What makes stink bugs stink?

You’ll notice the stink bug does not have any massive pincers, stingers or claws. But nobody puts baby in a corner. The stink bug defends itself with chemical warfare.

According to ChEnected (“Where chemical engineers mix it up”), the compounds involved are two aldehydes by the name of trans-2-decenal and trans-2-octenal. As Elizabeth Horohan notes, these compounds are actually used in the food industry to add flavor and aroma:

The trans-2-decenal, also known as decenaldehyde is described as having a ‘powerful waxy orange aroma’ … The trans-2-octenal is described as having a nutty flavor and an odor described as waxy or like a cucumber. In the world of food chemistry it is used in bakery items or dairy products.

When agitated, the putrid chemicals flow from glands in the stink bug’s thorax and release through tiny holes on the abdomen. And oh, the stuff works: most birds spit them right back out and humans show them more caution than many other bugs,  sucking them up with vacuums instead of squishing. (Though if your infestation is big, you’ll want a dedicated vacuum – because that thing’s gonna stink like the dickens.)

How do you get rid of stink bugs?

The best way to get rid of stink bugs is never to get stink bugs. Like I said before, you do that by making sure your screens, fascia, weather stripping, chimneys and doorways are tighter than Rikki Tikki Tavi. And once you have them, a Shop-Vac makes a gratifying phunk when you suck them up.

There are also “stink bug traps” all over the internet – essentially an inverted 2-liter bottle with an LED at the bottom. If it’s really bad, you can even hire stink bug specialists.

But old Pepsi bottles and house-by-house pesticide aren’t going to solve the invasive stink bug problem. For that, we’ll need the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Parasitic Wasps to the Rescue

If stink bugs don’t have natural enemies, let’s give ‘em some. That’s basically the rationale behind the USDA’s plan to release a species of parasitic wasps. And while a “parasitic wasp” sounds like a nightmarish creature worthy of a Syfy movie, the insects are actually the size of a pinhead and would pose no threat to humans or other native plants or wildlife. In theory.

If you’re thinking this sounds a bit like the old lady who swallowed the fly, you’re not alone. But they take such reintroductions very seriously. The team testing out the two-millimeter assassins has them locked “behind a series of pressurized quarantine doors” in Delaware. And since most insects can’t see red, they pump red light through the hallways making it appear to be a scary, dark chasm for wasps on the run.

Because if there’s one thing worse than being quarantined in impenetrable darkness, it’s being quarantined in impenetrable darkness in Delaware.

Hopefully, the scientists will conclude the wasps will affect brown marmorated stink bugs and only brown marmorated stink bugs and let those buggers go. Once released, the wasps will seek out stink bug eggs, pierce them and lay their own eggs within. Inside, the neonatal wasp devours the neonatal stink bug, then hatches and flies away like a little, innocent monster.

And if THAT doesn’t work, well, there’s one more thing I have to tell you about trans-2-decenal, one of the components that makes stink bugs stink. According to entomologist, Michael Raupp, it’s also found in cilantro. And you know what that means.

Stink Bug Tacos

First off, as someone who ate a stink bug recently I can attest that they taste almost exactly like they smell. Just crunchier.

Insects are crazy-effective at converting food to protein, we can raise tons of them in a small amount of space, and many other cultures already eat them. Some scientists argue eating insects is one way to end world hunger.

Still, I wouldn’t recommend eating stink bugs in the raw. To help you out, Bruce Leshan and WUSA9 have two recipes, Stink Bug Paté and Stink Bug Tacos. And since I’m not going to sit here and try to convince you chicken liver is the ingredient that will suddenly make you want to eat bugs, let’s have a look at those tacos.

1/2 lb. stink bugs
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lemon
Salt
2 ripe avocados, mashed
6 tortillas (corn or flour)

Roast stink bugs for 10 minutes in a 350° oven. Toss with garlic, juice from 1 lemon, and salt to taste. Spread mashed avocado on tortilla. Sprinkle on stink bugs, to taste.

So get out the salsa, toast some stinkers and uncork a red. Tonight we dine in smell.

 

Question submitted by my little sister, Katie, whom I’ll leave slightly anonymous so her students don’t get a picture of stink bugs when they Google her.

Images via USDA-ARS, the Winston-Salem Journal, Penn State, Wikipedia commons and stinkbugsguide.net. Video via Ento.