The Good, The Bad, and The Smelly

Photo by Daniel R. Suiter/University of Georgia

Bean Plataspids, or kudzu eating bugs, were first spotted in Georgia in 2009.  They have now spread throughout Georgia, South Carolina, part of North Carolina, and 4 counties in Alabama.  They dine on kudzu, otherwise known as the vine that ate the South!  Kudzu can grow up to a foot a day (that's 7 feet in a week, which is longer than the average human adult!).  Test plots in Athens, Georgia, showed these bugs reduced the amount of kudzu by one-third.  This should be good news, right?  However, along with good, comes some bad.  In addition to kudzu, bean plataspids also like legume plants such as soybeans.  It is still unknown what effect they might have on peanut crops.
Bean plataspids are part of the stinkbug family.  They also go by the names lablab bug and globular stink bug.  They can emit an unpleasant smell, but otherwise are not harmful to humans.  However, as the weather gets cooler, these bugs try to enter homes for the winter.  They are pea-sized and brown with a wide posterior.  They can fly very high.  Recent storms may have helped transport these bugs to surrounding states.  They are thought to be from somewhere in Asia, so how they traveled to the United States is not fully known.