Saturday, February 7, 2009

Pentatomidae

Tomorrow I plan to unpin the two wasps, key, and photograph them. In the meantime, I obtained this specimen c/o my aunt who lives down here in San Diego. Just as a reminder, my personal key only goes down to family, but I refer to bugguide.net and other internet resources to refine my identification, so if there is suspicion that my ID of an insect is incorrect after the family level, do bring it to my attention. I can't afford a key for every insect family.




Hemiptera; Pentatomidae; Pentatominae; Halyini;

These insects are commonly called "stink bugs" because when disturbed, they may emit a pungent liquid. Most of the family Pentatomidae are herbivores, sucking plant juices, and are major pests. They are not known to bite, and the family comes in many colors such as green, beige, black and red, and mottled earthy colors. Here are a few more examples of which I may devote single entries to at a later time.


3 comments:

  1. Nice macro shot! Though tut tut, no ambitions to know all insects down to species? Shame, shame ...

    Wow, lots of 'comment as' options. Lets try OpenID.

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  2. Hello friends, I just noticed that you have "Coleoptera" the beetles, up there instead of Hemiptera. You might want to edit that.

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  3. Ah thanks, good catch - tagged as Hemiptera, labeled as Coleoptera - whoops.

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