Southern green stink bug
Nezara viridula
— Where the name comes from
Viridula is the diminutive of viridis: “greenish”. The name of the order says the structure instead: Hemiptera, “half wings”, because the forewing is leathery in the half attached to the body and membranous in the far half — a solution halfway between a beetle’s wing case and a bare wing. Cimice comes from the Latin cimex, which named the bedbug and from there passed to the whole family.
— Facts
- Group
- Insects · Insecta
- Order
- True bugs
- Habitat
- Vegetable plots, soya and tomato fields, orchards
- Range
- African in origin; today in every warm region of the world
- Size
- 12–16 mm
- Diet
- The juices of fruits and developing seeds
- Lifespan
- 1 year; the adult overwinters and turns brown
— Characteristics
- 01
The defensive fluid comes from two glands on the sides of the thorax.
- 02
In winter the adult shifts from green to reddish brown.
- 03
It pierces developing fruit and makes it drop or deform.
— What sets it apart
The smell is a well-designed chemical weapon: the blend of aldehydes it secretes is volatile, persistent and — something its victims do not suspect — also works as a signal, because at low concentration it warns other bugs of danger and at high concentration repels the predator. But the way these insects really talk to one another is different: they vibrate their abdomens and send the signal along the plant’s stem, which acts as a telephone wire. Males and females find each other by following those vibrations, and different species use different frequencies so as not to be confused on the same stalk.
