Take Another Look at Stink Bugs

By Brandie Jefferson

Perhaps at some point you’ve said you never want to see a stinkbug again. Who can blame you?

But take a look at the Brown Marmorated Stinkbug (BMSB) in a whole new light, through the lens of macro photography. They look downright beautiful (really!) when captured by photographer Francis Prior.

Prior told the website io9 that the beauty of macro photography was that “We see things we could not normally [see] or may not want to see … and what we can’t see, we can’t appreciate, right?”

Those dealing with infestations may not appreciate them, butstinkbugs have been getting a lot of attention from entomologists and other biologists interested in the spread of invasive species. 

The bug is listed as the Department of Agriculture’s top-ranked invasive insect and a special workgroup, the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug IPM Working Group, has brought together scientists from across the country to mobilize “to form a defense against the invasive pest brown marmorated stink bug.”

The group is working on ways to protect farms from the devastation that stink bugs can bring to crops.

For the rest of us, however, the bugs are not much more than a nuisance. So take a second to look at them through a different lens. 

And then get back to trying to figure out how to get stinkbugs out of your house.