A Lovely, Marmorated Quality

Suspenseful, certainly.   Leaving you yesterday without a third bug identified.  But this morning the perennial indoor pests of the winter, the stink bugs, who are pitifully sluggish until they miraculously fly about, noisily, sent one of their own marching across the inside trim of the back porch door and I jumped up to see about identifying this little beast before escorting him outside. 

Stink bugs presumably smell.  Someone determinately advocated for this name at one point or another.  There were probably a dozen popular names for the insect before the current, unfortunate assignation took hold.  I have successfully captured and released about two dozen stink bugs last winter.  Not one of them ever had any odor to speak of.  I would say that I was generally careful not to crush any of the mites suspecting that this would be my deserved confrontation then, with their nastiness.  I cup them in a paper towel.  They never try to flee.  Bundle them up, head to the door and drop them to the ground.  Generally they consider this for a moment, and then fly off immediately. 

Paper towel and smartphone in hand I try to adjust the zoom on my camera of my phone app with the other mitt.  Quickly, the Seek app confirms that this is assuredly a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug.  We appear to have an infestation of Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs.  The scientific name is Halyomorpha Halys.  Does the official term also suggest the bugs smell bad?  Google translate can’t reckon with it and that’s about as far as I’m gonna take the Latin derivation question. 

The bug's Wiki page has nothing to add on this matter but I do learn that yes, when it is attacked, it lets out a foul odor that repels reptiles and the like and that I took risk, certainly trundling along with these guys, seeing them to the door.  I can’t leave the matter of stink bugs though, without at least closing out the actual meaning of “marmorated” a word which the Seek app was kind enough to introduce me to just now.  And, who knows when one might be able to suggest someone’s counter top had a lovely ‘marmorated’ quality, wouldn’t you say?  Marmorated:  having a marbled or streaked appearance.

Wednesday, 4/29/20