Susan,

I read this article last night and shrugged it off.

I'm not saying brown marmorated stink bugs haven't been seen in Oklahoma, because they probably have. However, I've never seen a single one anywhere on our land or in my garden and I am outside in the yard, garden and pastures every day. All I've ever seen here are the common everyday green stinkbugs and southern brown stinkbugs.

So, on the scale of things I'm concerned about, this one is pretty far down on the list.

I've had an occasional brown or green stinkbug loiter near the front or back door (often clinging to the door itself) as autumn cools, and I suspect they're hoping to come inside, but I just flick them off the door with my finger before I open it.

If I lived in the northeastern part of the country where you have to fight a pitched battle to keep them out of your house every single fall, I'd be more concerned.

Dawn

I saw two bugs that looked like that this week except I am remembering the body shape being slightly longer. I had cooked steaks late Sunday, and when I put the cover back on the grill on Monday, I saw these two bugs on the cover. I thought it was very odd that they were on the cover and not on a plant.

The owner had taken the rest of that fallen tree down and cut it into segments, and we shoveled out the inside and moved it to the compost pile, and I had seen lots of bugs in it, plus some kind of lizard that was about a foot long. At first I thought it was a snake when I could only see it's tail. That hollow tree was a habitat for a lot of things, so I just assumed these bugs had come from there also. With as much tree damage as we had, I'm sure a lot of wild things had to find new homes.

Dawn, you may not have seen them yet, but they are reportedly in Oklahoma, one of the 38 states the article refers to.

Carol, I saw 2 of them this morning and quickly disposed of them. They were on the Okra. It's actually the 1st time I've seen them on any of the veggies in the yard, but they could have been and I missed them. I think they were the Southern Brown species.

I just thought we all needed to be aware of this potential problems. Several studies have been done on the spread of the BMSB and it's rapid expansion is pretty impressive. This particular bug originated in Orient.

It's always good to have a heads up, and apparently they are concerned about the overwintering numbers that will show themselves next spring.

Aren't we excited about that possibility.......not.

Susan

I hate, hate, hate stink bugs of any kind. I never have figured out if there are any of the beneficial ones here. The ones I squish are full of my tomatoes. I am sure I have lots of cracks in my house for those to enter. Soonermom there is a big skink that lives in hollow trees. I had one in my tree.

Here is a link that might be useful: skink

Helen, I didn't get a look at his head, but the color was much lighter than that picture. I uncovered him with the shovel and he quickly tried to make his way back down into the wood waste I was shoveling. Actually I tossed him into the wheelbarrow. He was very light in color and had darker stripes straight down his body. The guys got a better look than I did because I was shoveling and they were watching at the time.

I can be so good at self-delusion when it comes to things I'd rather not believe. But - without a doubt - I killed a female brown marmorated stink bug, today. I really tried to make the shoulder spikes in my mind, but they weren't there.

Payne County, Oklahoma Tuesday, June 17 2014