Green rice bug
| Green rice bug | ||||||||||||
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Nezara viridula f. emeraldula |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Nezara viridula | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The green stink bug (also Southern stink bug, Nezara viridula ) is a bug from the family of stink bugs (Pentatomidae).
features
The bugs are 11.5 to 16.5 millimeters long. They look similar to the green stink bug ( Palomena prasina ) and also have a uniform green body color. However, they lack the black dots on the body and the wing membrane is pale in color. They also have three to five white dots along the front edge of the scutellum , which are flanked on each side by a dark dot. In some individuals, the head and leading edge of the pronotum are cream colored. In America the species can also be confused with Chinavia hilaris . This species can be distinguished by its scent gland openings, which are located on the abdomen on the sternum between the middle and rear legs. They are long and curved in her, whereas in the green rice bug they are short and wide.
The color of the species is very variable. Nine color morphs are known, which are derived from four basic coloring types, which differ in the proportion of orange color. The most common, monochrome green morph is called Forma smaragdula . In Forma aurantiaca , the green color is completely replaced by orange, yellow or, less often, pink. The occurrence of the color morphs varies greatly with the area of distribution. Most color morphs occur e.g. B. in Japan , but where the forma aurantiaca occurs only about one in 5000 individuals. The nymphs are also variably colored and change their coloring very strongly with each stage.
Occurrence and habitat
The species is distributed worldwide in the tropics and subtropics and occurs in the entire Mediterranean area. It is regularly brought into other parts of Europe by the transport of agricultural fruits, for example to Great Britain . Due to the increasingly more favorable climatic conditions in Europe, it is about to expand its distribution area to the north. B. also in Hungary . The species established itself in the Upper Rhine Graben in southwest Germany in the 2010s and can be observed very frequently. In North America, the species occurs in the southeastern United States , in the east from Virginia to Florida , in the midwest in Ohio and Arkansas, and in the southwest to Texas . It is also common in California and Hawaii . In South America, due to the increasing cultivation of soybeans, the species is also spreading further and thus also occurs in Paraguay , the south of Argentina and in the direction of the northeast of Brazil . It is believed that the species was originally distributed in eastern Africa and that it was increasingly introduced to other parts of the world by humans.
Way of life
The green rice bug feeds polyphagous on many different plants and has been identified from species from more than 30 plant families. In its natural range, it is an economically important pest in agriculture. This is mainly because they transmit fungal diseases when they suckle the plants. The fruits then have dark spots around the puncture points, young fruits usually die. In the tropics, the species occurs all year round. In the north of its distribution, it takes a diapause in winter , during which the body color of the adults turns brown or reddish brown. However, the animals change color back to their original color in spring. Under favorable conditions, it can train up to four generations per year.
The females begin to lay eggs three to four weeks after molting into the imago. As a rule, they lay a clutch of 30 to 130 white to light yellow, barrel-shaped eggs at a time, but it is not uncommon for the female to lay two eggs in a row. In total, a female lays an average of 260 eggs in her lifetime. The eggs are laid on the underside of the leaves in the upper area of the food plants. The nymphs hatch, depending on temperature conditions after about five days to three weeks from just before the slip pink discolored eggs. In the first stage they live gregariously and do not eat. After about three days they shed their skin and then start sucking on the plants. The next molt occurs after about five days, the other stages take about a week until they molt from the fifth stage to the imago after an average of eight days.
Natural enemies
The green rice bug is parasitized by the caterpillar fly Trichopoda pennipes from the family Tachinidae . This lays an egg on the bug. The hatched fly larva is a parasitoid . This bores into the inside of the bug, where it continues to develop, which ultimately leads to the death of its host animal.
Picture gallery
Clutch
first nymph stage
second nymph stage
third nymph stage
fourth nymph stage
fifth nymph stage
Imago ready to overwinter with darkened color
literature
- Ekkehard Wachmann , Albert Melber, Jürgen Deckert: Bugs. Volume 4: Pentatomomorpha II: Pentatomoidea: Cydnidae, Thyreocoridae, Plataspidae, Acanthosomatidae, Scutelleridae, Pentatomidae. (= The animal world of Germany and the adjacent parts of the sea according to their characteristics and their way of life . 81st part). Goecke & Evers, Keltern 2008, ISBN 978-3-937783-36-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Ekkehard Wachmann , Albert Melber, Jürgen Deckert: Bugs. Volume 4: Pentatomomorpha II: Pentatomoidea: Cydnidae, Thyreocoridae, Plataspidae, Acanthosomatidae, Scutelleridae, Pentatomidae. (= The animal world of Germany and the adjacent parts of the sea according to their characteristics and their way of life . 81st part). Goecke & Evers, Keltern 2008, ISBN 978-3-937783-36-9 , pp. 150 ff .
- ↑ a b Nezara viridula. British Bugs, accessed March 26, 2014 .
- ↑ a b c d e J. M. Squitier: Southern Green Stink Bug, Nezara viridula (Linnaeus) (Insecta: Hemiptera: Pentatomidae). Featured creatures, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural services. (Online: PDF )
- ^ A b Mary Golden, Peter A. Follett: First report of Nezara viridula f. aurantiaca (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) in Hawaii. Proceedings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society 38 (2006), pp. 131-132.
- ^ A b J. W. Todd: Ecology and Behavior of Nezara Viridula . Annual Review of Entomology 34 (1989) pp. 273-292.
- ↑ Dmitry L. Musolin: Surviving winter: diapause syndrome in the southern green stink bug Nezara viridula in the laboratory, in the field, and under climate change conditions. Physiological Entomology 37/4, pp. 309-322, December 2012.
- ↑ P. Glynn Tillman: Stink Bugs (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae) and their Natural Enemies in Alfalfa in South Georgia . Journal of Entomological Science 48 (1): 1-8. 2013. Retrieved December 18, 2016.