Help: unidentified bug
bodh...@gmail.com
One of my roommates was extremely shocked to find this:
http://www.macross.com/~jayds/images/bug.jpg
....little critter on her blanket while she was under it. As it's the
dead of winter here in Rockport, MA, my only option was to let him
outside. Weather.com says it's about 23 degrees fahrenheit right now
but since we're right on the water I'm going to guess it's a little bit
colder than that.
Anyway, here's the strange part... I put it outside and about an hour
or maybe 80 minutes later I happen to look in the spot where I put him
and he's dead. Upside-down, feet tucked under his body, traditional
on-back cartoon representation of a dead bug. Again, we're talking
over an hour in sub-zero weather.
I pick up the tissue he's on because I don't want it blowing around
outside. I'm looking at his body structure and lo, it begins to move
very slowly. Within about two minutes he's righted himself and doing a
little bit of walking.
Anyone know what the heck this is?
It's an extremely cautious little bugger, too. Very slow movements,
lots of periods of doing nothing but sitting in a back-crouched,
antennae forward position with no particular orientation to the absence
or presence of light, heat or even me. After about ten minutes, it has
not moved more than an inch and is still on the tissue on my desk under
a lamp. Lightly blowing on it just causes it to recoil a little bit
but nothing more.
Any ideas? The back almost looks cricket-like but flatter, almost
blade-like. Imagine a guitar pick but fatter and longer, not boxy like
a cricket or a grasshopper would be. The roundish edge of this
imaginary guitar pick has a diamond-shaped head attached but no neck,
really. If we imagine the bug to be oriented facing north and the
diamond head on the north side of the body, the diamond is elongated on
a north-south axis and on the west and east tips are small eyes. At
the north tip of the diamond are two antennae projecting from the tip.
The back legs are currently extended pretty far back and almost
straight, not cocked like a cricket.
It *almost* looks like a cockroach except that it isn't as broad, not
nearly as fast-moving (even when I initially caught it) and I've never
seen one in this house anyway.
I'm sorry the pic is so crummy. It was done with a cellphone camera.
Thanks for any help in advance.
Regards,
Jason
wtmorgan
In article <MOD$05020...@rec.gardens.ecosystems>, bodh...@gmail.com wrote:
> One of my roommates was extremely shocked to find this:
>
> http://www.macross.com/~jayds/images/bug.jpg
The pic is good enough to see that it is a leaf-footed bug (Order
Hemiptera, family Coreidae).These are sometimes erroneously called stink
bugs, though that title generally refers to the family Pentatomidae.
Leaf-footed bugs are sap-suckers, but not pests of great importance. We
mostly notice them as "fall invaders" which come into buildings when the
weather starts getting cold.
Regards,
Bill