Toilet bug from Germany
Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 4:58 AM
Hey Bugman,
I’ve got a problem with my bathroom and the area around it. For a few weeks now these kind of flying bugs are hanging around here all the time. I keep throwing them out of my house but they must nest somewhere in the house.
They are winged and they can fly, but only for a short period. They get exhausted quite fast. Once you annoy them, like with throwing them out, they spit at you in a last attempt of telling me to back off. And since I don’t want to end up in the unneccessary carnage section, I ask you to tell me what kind of bug that is and what I should do, to get rid of it.
Greetings,
Philipp
Germany
Mottled Shield Bug
Dear Philipp,
It is with great amusement that we post your letter with an image of a Stink Bug that is fond of the toilet. While we are not prepared to comment on why the toilet is the area of the home where you are most frequently finding the intruders, we can tell you that Stink Bugs in the family Pentatomidae, and other True Bugs often enter homes when cold weather sets in so they can escape the winter cold. The Stink Bugs are not breeding in your home and they will not do any damage. They are merely waiting out the winter so they can return to the great outdoors in the spring.
Update: January 26, 2016
A new comment brought this old posting to our attention. Because of the banded antennae, this appears to be a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, a species native to East Asia including China that according to BugGuide was “First collected in 1998 in Allentown, PA, but probably arrived several years earlier.” It has now spread coast to coast.
Correction: February 25, 2017
This appears to be a Mottled Shield Bug, Rhaphigaster nebulosa.
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I lived in the USA for 17 years and they were a pest there, imported from Japan. They feed on fruit. They are clumsy Flyers and actually cause a lot of annoying sounds in the room that way, banging against the walls and circling lights. In some parts of the US they appear in swarms and cover whole housewalls cause they multiply rather fast. Di not crush them…thats when they emit their stink, which somewhat resembles a Skunk, and this stink will attract more stinkbugs to come to the place….
Thanks for drawing our attention to this old posting of what appears to be the invasive Brown Marmorated Stink Bug.
No, it is the — much more likely in Europe — Mottled Shieldbug (Rhaphigaster nebulosa):
https://www.britishbugs.org.uk/heteroptera/Pentatomidae/rhaphigaster_nebulosa.html
Not everything is a BMSB. Not everything that is in the US is everywhere else, and there is more to the world than just the US. Also, not everything with banded antennae is BMSB.
Thanks for the correction.
No problem, just want your site to be accurate as it helps me as well. 🙂
I know though it is difficult to tell the differences on these at first glance but this French site has a series of good pics (though it does not show the white-ish (sometimes orangish) dots along the top and bottom of the pronotum that the BMSB usually has that Rhaphigaster nebulosa does not.
http://ephytia.inra.fr/fr/C/20540/Agiir-Rhaphigaster-nebulosa
Also, if the wings were not opened slightly in the one submitted to WTB? (as in the picture linked below) then we could see the difference in the bordering white patches around the abdomen.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhaphigaster_nebulosa_-_taking_flight_A_-_02.jpg
The BMSB has triangles with a narrow straight white line in the black in between:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_marmorated_stink_bug#/media/File:Brown_marmorated_stink_bug_adult.jpg
While the Mottled Shieldbug has very irregular patches, as can be seen on the French site, Figure 4.
BTW, the French site calls the BMSB a “Diabolical” bug (in French of course). (=
Still, location is always a good first indicator.
Thanks for all the links and the additional information. Many times our identifications are hasty, especially when we are in a hurry and don’t have time to fully investigate. We always appreciate corrections from our readership.
That’s the dumbest comment n this matter that I can imagine.. sorry that lil german me lived in the US that long and harmed your one sided picture of the world … and no it’s a stinkbug. I happened to import them here accidently 😛