New Yorker: When 26,000 Stinkbugs Invade a Home

Brown marmorated stinkbugs are ravaging an array of crops along with ordinary trees and plants. They also swarm some US homes by the thousands. The insect, known for a noxious smell, is a product of globalization, explains Kathryn Schulz for the New Yorker. The stinkbug’s native habitat is East Asia, and the United States lacks natural predators like the samurai wasp. Stinkbugs are attracted to edge habitats, light and warm air and enter homes through windows or tiny crevices. Schulz describes them as “resourceful hitchhikers,” noting: “Prior to the era of planetwide transportation networks, species routinely took millennia to establish themselves in new places. Today, thousands move around the world every day – by ship and plane and freight and pallet and packing crate…. At present, this vast influx of new species costs the United States about a hundred and twenty billion dollars a year and is, after habitat destruction, the main reason the world has lost so much biodiversity.” US scientists identified the problem in 1998, and stinkbugs have since spread to 44 states, Canada, South America and Europe. The insects do not bite people, but suck at fruits and vegetables, leaving a bad taste, and buyers reject crops that have received excessive applications. One entomologist suggests stinkbugs is a among “the major drivers in the history of entomology in the United States.” – YaleGlobal