Brown Marmorated Stink Bug

During our first Bed Time Walk and Talk on August 6, we found this little critter on a tomato plant. (Yes, another tomato problem. Sigh......) Denise knew it was a nymph but we didn't know what it was a nymph of.

Last night, I was looking at a blog I follow and what do you know...they had a picture of this exact same bug - Brown Marmorated Stink Bug.  It definitely isn't a good bug for us to have, especially in the numbers that we have.  Denise says she has been catching 15 - 20 nymphs every day at the garden to take home to feed her praying mantids. When I was reading up on them, one article I read said they were a favorite food of praying mantids.

Do you remember all those brown armored looking bugs that were in the shed all winter and early spring? I do believe this is one of their babies after looking at the pictures of the adults.

Unfortunately for us, the harm they cause is vast. They love to pierce and suck juices out of fruits and leaves of beans, tomato, okra, corn, pepper, eggplant, etc. Where they pierce the fruits and leaves they leave pimples, warts and discolored areas. Have you ever picked a tomato that had cloudy white colored spots on it? This is called cloudy spot and is what happens after the fruit has been pierced by a stink bug.

Here are several links if you want to learn more about them :
Stink bugs
This link has a description of what harm they cause, recommendations of how to deal with them and where they like to hide (like our shed in the winter).

Pictures of all stages of growth of brown marmorated stink bugs
Egg stage through adult. Watch for and kill all stages!

Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs with video
Has the exact same nymph picture I have as well as a little video showing the bugs crawling around on corn, piercing and sucking the juices out of individual kernels of corn. They like to pierce and suck the juice out of lots of different veggies besides corn.