The United States is once again under attack from an invasive species. The brown marmorated stinkbugs have been in the northeastern part for more than a decade. They were first spotted in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1998, and moved to other states such as New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Now, they have migrated to the South, where much of the country’s crops are grown.

This species of stinkbug, shaped like tiny shields with white-stranded antennae, is originally from China, Taiwan, and other East Asian countries. Entomologists believe that they may have hitched a ride with a cargo ship. They are agricultural pests in Asia, and love to chow down vegetables and fruits, notably soybeans, tomatoes, corn, apples, figs, peaches, and citrus fruits.

Since their arrival, the stinkbugs have become agricultural pests for the US. The Seattle Times and the Washington Post reported a couple of days ago that there have been sightings of these brown pests in Maryland, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and even Washington DC. A loss of $37 million in damaged crops has been estimated in 2010 alone.

Stinkbugs are bothersome indoors as well as outdoors – they like to dwell in residential homes and eat weeds and decorative household plants. They enter through cracks in doors, windows, pipes, etc.

“Chimneys, pipes, cable lines, electric junctions and other access points should be sealed with silicon or a silicon-latex mixture,” Miguel Saviroff, extension educator at the Penn State Cooperative Extension office in Pennsylvania, tells the Daily American. “Windows and screens should be properly fitted. They really only need a tiny space to get in.”

They are benign creatures for humans, though they are annoying when they are airborne, emitting a loud buzz. “They are a nuisance,” says Ivar Hansen, New York resident. “They disturb me.”

“I started seeing them two years ago,” an anonymous New Yorker states. “They fall in your food and in your hair, and there was one in my bed.”

It would be best for homeowners not to squish them, otherwise they would learn why stinkbugs have such an appellation the hard way: they’ll stink like rotten tomatoes. Entomologists in Pennsylvania recommend calling the exterminator instead of using insecticide and pesticides on your own. Household insecticides have been proven to be ineffective.

“We tried spraying with insecticide but it didn’t work. They didn’t die,” continues the anonymous New York resident, who once used Raid to clean a screen door coated with stink bugs.

“Smush them with a paper towel or a piece of toilet paper and flush them in the toilet,” she suggests.

The College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State is wary of the use of vacuums to rid of the stinkbugs: even though one can remove them without dirtying ones hands, from inside the vacuum, “the vacuum may acquire the smell of stink bugs for a period of time.”

The US contains native stinkbug species, but their populations are prevented from skyrocketing due to natural predators. Since there are no natural predators for the brown marmorated stinkbugs, their population has wildly increased.

Scientists in Florida (where there is much fear that the population of this invasive species will burst) are testing with a nonstinging parasitic species of wasp from Asia that is a natural predator to the brown marmorated stinkbug. If things for the South – or for the US in its entirety – become worse, the wasps will have to be released, possibly sometime in October. However, they may, too, turn out to be an invasive species.

For now, just flush the stink bugs down the toilet.

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A rare species of horse fly has remained nameless for decades – there are over 4,000 species of horse flies worldwide to be categorized and named, after all. That is, until researcher Bryan Lessard, who works at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia, decided to name the insect after the American pop star, Beyonce Knowles, who, with her past group, Destiny’s Child, in 2001, released the hit single “Bootylicious.”

The horse fly was found in the Queensland providence – a northeastern area in Australia – with two other horse fly species in 1981, the year Ms. Knowles was born. ”It was the unique dense golden hairs on the fly’s abdomen that led me to name this fly in honor of the performer Beyoncé, as well as giving me the chance to demonstrate the fun side of taxonomy – the naming of species,” Lessard states in CSIRO’s media release.

As stated by the researcher, the horse fly is an “all time diva of flies,” having a “bootylicious,” golden rear end. The species, named Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae, is one of the five species of horse flies belonging to the new species subgroup (Plinthina), which has been doubled in the number of species due to the discovery of the fly with the golden butt. More than one hundred species of horse fly are categorized in the genus Scaptia.

“Most Australian Scaptia species have been described,” Lessard states. “However, these five ‘new’ species of a sub-group (Plinthina) have been housed in Australian collections since the group was last studied in the 1960’s.” More detailed information regarding Beyonce’s fly is provided in Lessard’s paper, which was published in the August online edition of the Australian Journal of Entomology.

Horse flies are more than their frightful appearances and ferocious stings. They actually play an important role in the ecosystem. “Horse flies act like hummingbirds during the day, drinking nectar from their favorite varieties of grevillea, tea trees, and eucalyptus,” explains Lessard. According to the research organization’s news blog, the CSIRO has yet to hear any reaction from Beyonce, who has recently given birth to her first child, Blue Ivy Carter.

Beyonce is not the only celebrity to have a species’ binomial nomenclature designated after a celebrity’s apellation. Others include Arnold Schwarzenegger and the carabid beetle, Agra schwarzeneggeri, Roy Orbinson and the beetle, Orectochilus, Sting and the frog, Hyla stingus, Frank Zappa and the spider, Pachygnatha zappa, and Mick Jagger and the trilobite, Aegrotocatellus jaggeri.

Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com

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On January 10, 2012, beekeepers from across the country gathered at a national conference, with environmental organizations at their side, to draw attention to the growing plight facing their industry –the decline of honey bees – a problem that has far reaching implications for the U.S. economy.

“Bees and other pollinators are the underpinnings of a successful agricultural economy,” said Brett Adee, Co-Chair of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board and owner of Adee Honey Farms. “Without healthy, successful pollinators, billions of dollars are at stake.”

Many family-owned beekeeping operations are migratory, with beekeepers traveling the country from state-to-state during different months of the year to provide pollination services and harvest honey and wax. Bees in particular are responsible for pollinating many high-value crops, including pumpkins, cherries, cranberries, almonds, apples, watermelons, and blueberries. So any decline in bee populations’ health and productivity can have especially large impacts on the agricultural economy.

Honey bees are the most economically important pollinators in the world, according to a recent United Nations report on the global decline of pollinator populations.

On Tuesday, commercial beekeepers shared first-hand accounts of the value of beekeeping and of the dramatic impact of bee declines. Beekeepers estimate that one single bee kill from a pesticide exposure incident, representing 200 bee colonies, is responsible for an estimated $5 million of value to the agricultural economy. David Hackenberg, Co-Chair of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board and owner of Hackenberg Apiaries, estimates that his colonies alone generate $5 million in value over 6 months: $500,000 from California almonds in January, $800,000 from Georgia blueberries in March, $2 million from Pennsylvania apples and cherries in April, $500,000 from Maine blueberries in May, and $1 million from Pennsylvania pumpkins in June.

“If you think about it, bees and other pollinators are Mother Nature’s ultimate economic stimulus,” said Hackenberg. “Economists quantify pollination as an ‘ecosystem service’, although these figures are often unaccounted for in the traditional measures, like the GDP.”

In 2000, the last official study, the value of pollination was estimated at $14.6 million. Beekeepers suggest the number under-calculates the value of their services. They suggest the real value of their operations is $50 billion, based on retail value of food and crop grown from seed that relies upon bee pollination.

Beekeepers have survived the economic recession only to find their operations are still threatened.  Recent, catastrophic declines in honey bee populations, termed “Colony Collapse Disorder”, have been linked to a wide variety of factors, including parasites, habitat loss, and pesticides.

“The threats facing pollinators should raise concerns, as sub-lethal impacts on bees are more serious than we had initially thought,” said Dr. Jim Frazier, professor of Entomology at Penn State University. “Every time someone looks, they find something new.”

Beekeepers also noted they are partnering with environmental organizations, highlighting the threat of pesticides to the continued success of the profession and the agricultural economy. They raise special concerns with neonicotinoids, a class of systemic pesticides that is taken up a plant and expressed through the plants through which bees then forage and pollinate.

Research released last week in the journal, ‘PLoS ONE’, underscores the threat of these pesticides through a previously undocumented exposure route – planter exhaust – the talc and air mix expelled into the environment as automated planters place neonicotinoid-treated seeds into the ground during spring planting.

“Independent research links pollinator declines, especially honey bees, to a wide range of problems with industrial agriculture, especially pesticides,” said Paul Towers, spokesperson for Pesticide Action Network.

Threats to pollinators, especially commercial honey bees, concern the entire food system.  With one in three bites of food reliant on pollination, beekeepers and environmental organizations alike call out the wide-scale problem.

“Because EPA has not adequately regulated certain pesticides, the food system, including many of the foods we enjoy eating most, are at risk,” said John Kepner, Project Director for Beyond Pesticides. “We can’t afford not to take action to protect pollinators – for wallets and dinner tables alike.”

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/wohack/

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