Green stink bug

Appearance

The green stink bug's color is typically bright green, with narrow yellow, orange, or reddish edges.

It is a large, shield-shaped bug with an elongate, oval form and a length between 13–18 mm. It can be differentiated from the species "Nezara viridula" by its black outermost three antennal segments. Its anterolateral pronotal margin is rather straight and not strongly arced such as in "Acrosternum pennsylvanicum".

Both adults and nymphs have large stink glands on the underside of the thorax extending more than half-way to the edge of the metapleuron. They discharge large amounts of this foul-smelling liquid when disturbed. This liquid, dried and pulverized, was once used at industrial level to reinforce the smell of some acids. Now it's been replaced by artificial composites.

Habitat

It is found in orchards, gardens, woodlands and crop fields throughout North America, feeding with their needle-like mouthparts on the juices of a wide variety of plants from May until the arrival of frost. Adults develop a preference for developing seeds and thus become crop pests. When no seeds are present, they also feed on stems and foliage, thus damaging several fruit trees, such as the apple, cherry, orange and peach trees. Moreover, it can be found in Queensland and New South Wales. Green stink bugs bored well on "bonfire salvia" as well as tomatoes and mulberry. Also it has been found on peaches, apricots, grapes, silver beet and french beans. The difference here is that they don't seem to be a pest for them.

Reproduction

They attach their keg-shaped eggs on the underside of foliage in double rows of twelve eggs or more. The green stink bug produces one generation in the North and two generations in the South. The early instar nymphs are rather brightly colored and striped, turning green when approaching adulthood. The eggs are usually laid in clusters of 14. The eggs are laid either on the undersurfaces of leaves or on the stems of plants or on the flowers of salvia.