Are soldiers defending your garden?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

January 21 2004

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The spined soldier bug (Podisus maculiventris (Say)) is a member of the stink bug family (Pentatomidae), insects well known for their malodorous defense mechanism. The shield-shaped insect is native to much of North America ranging into southern Canada. Like other members of the family, spined soldier bugs have mouth parts modified for piercing and sucking. Unlike other members that attack and damage plants, spined soldier bugs are hunters--stabbing and drinking their prey.

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Female soldier bugs can lay hundreds of barrel-shaped eggs in clusters of twenty to seventy, but usually around twenty-five or thirty. The nymph stages are round. By the second instar (period between molts), the insects are hungry and brutal to their siblings. If the tiny two and a half millimeter nymphs cannot disperse quickly, they begin feeding on each other.

Spined soldier bugs prefer soft-bodied insects--caterpillars, the larval stage of Lepidopterans (moths and butterflies), and the nymph stages of Coleopterans (beetles). They also prefer insects that move slowly. Soldier bugs prey on over one hundred species of insects, mostly pests that defoliate plants, from bean beetles to cabbage loopers.

Once they become adults, spined soldier bugs are efficient hunters and, depending on the weather, will live another two to three months. In that time, each soldier will kill about one or two insects per day.

(Compiled from: "Podisus maculiventris", M.P. Hoffmann and A.C. Frodsham, Biological Control: A Guide to Natural Enemies in North America, Cornell University; and "Spined Soldier Bug", D. B. Richman and F.W. Mead, Featured Creatures, IFAS, University of Florida, 2001)

Integrated Pest Management of the Department of Entomology, Iowa State University, has photographs of three stink bugs, two pests and one beneficial, the spined soldier bug. To learn to identify the good from the bad, click on the link:

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/icm/2001/9-17-2001/stinkbugs.html

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