Guess the Pest! Week #24-25 Answer is Green Stink Bug Nymphs

Bill Cissel, Extension Agent – Integrated Pest Management; bcissel@udel.edu

Congratulations to John Comegys for accurately identifying the insect in Guess the Pest Week #24-25 as green stink bug nymphs. John will not only have his name entered into the end of season raffle for $100 gift card not once but five times, he will also receive a FREE copy of A Farmer’s Guide to Corn Diseases.

http://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/book/cornfarmersguide/

I would like to thank everyone that participated in Guess the Pest and hope that you found it to be a fun way to challenge yourself and hopefully you learned something along the way that will be of value to you. To see who won the $100 gift card, please click on the Guess the Pest logo to watch the recorded raffle drawing.

If you are one of the weekly winners that received a Free copy of A Farmer’s Guide to Corn Diseases, please pick them up at Kent or Sussex county Extension Office.

Guess the Pest Week #24-25 Answer is Green Stink Bug Nymphs

The insects in the photos are green stink bug nymphs. Green stink bug nymphs often remind me of painted turtles or at least that is the first thought that pops into my head when I see them. Stink bugs are in the order, Hemiptera, often referred to as true bugs. Hemipterans have a simple metamorphosis in that they have three life stages; egg, nymph, and adult compared to complete metamorphosis which has four life stages; egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The nymphal stages of many hemipterans only loosely resemble the adults, having different coloration and are usually smaller in size.

Stink bug nymphs are often confused with beetles because of their body shape. An easy way to determine if you are looking at an immature insect versus an adult is to look for wings. Most adult insects (not all, there is always an exception) are winged. The easiest way to distinguish between beetles and immature stink bugs or other true bugs is to look at the mouthparts. For example, beetles have chewing mouthparts and stink bugs have piercing-sucking mouthparts. This feature can also be used when diagnosing crop injury. If a plant’s leaves are “chewed”, you know the damage wasn’t caused by a stink bug or any other insect with piercing-sucking mouthparts.