Stink bugs like this four-humped stink bug may enter homes with firewood.
To differentiate four-humped stink bugs (left) from brown marmorated stink bugs (insert right) look at the shoulders. Four-humped stink bugs have spiny shoulders while shoulders of brown marmorated stink bugs lack spines.
In a previous episode we visited a domestic invasion by the nefarious brown marmorated stink bugs. This winter a different six-legged stinker has graced my kitchen, where something seems magical about the kitchen counter. On a chilly morning a few weeks ago, I was greeted by another member of the stink bug clan prancing across the kitchen counter, the four-humped stink bug which also goes by the name of rough stink bug. No, four-humped does not refer to some strange mating behavior nor does rough allude to rude conduct in polite company. These common names refer to some Bactrian camel-like adornments on the back of the stink bug and rows of spines at the margins of its “shoulders” just behind the head. Four-humped stink bugs are predominately arboreal, dining on a wide variety of trees, shrubs and vines from more than a dozen plant families. Apparently, sometimes they stray from the vegan plan and snack on juicy caterpillars. Who wouldn’t? In addition to my kitchen, they range throughout much of North America and are found in Central America, Africa, and Oceania according to Wikipedia.
Back to the mystery of why Mister Four-humped wound up in my kitchen. Scientists have discovered that in the more natural world, Brochymena spends the winter nestled beneath the bark of trees much like its cousin the brown marmorated stink bug. Not too many dead standing trees occupy my home, but frigid temperatures and a dead furnace recently necessitated a steady stream of firewood entering the house to be combusted in an attempt to keep the pipes and family from freezing. While gathering wood the other day, my spouse turned over a bolt of firewood and snuggled between two logs was a pair of four-humped stink bugs. Apparently, a stack of firewood is a suitable location to spend the winter if you are a stink bug. No doubt during this unusually chilly January and early February many stink bugs hitched a fatal ride into the woodbin and ultimately joined their kin in the afterlife following a toasty visit to the fireplace. For the lucky stink bug that awoke from its winter torpor and sidled across the counter, well it was just like Cooper Kupp going to Disney after the winning the Superbowl. The stink bug won a reprieve. As I placed it beneath a log in my neighbor’s abandoned woodpile, I thought I saw the bug smile. But hey, stink bugs have sucking mouthparts and no lips so it could not have smiled, just my imagination, right?
Stink bugs often wind up inside homes in winter. Three years ago, I discovered a brown marmorated stink bug on my coffee cup early one morning. They are well-known home invaders. Recently, a four-humped stink bug raced across my kitchen counter. Discovering other four-humped stink bugs nestled in my firewood cache outside likely explains how they ultimately appear inside.
A detailed account of the biology of the four-humped stink bug entitled “Life History and Laboratory Rearing of Brochymena quadripustulata with Descriptions of Immature Stages and Additional Notes on Brochymena arborea (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae)” by J. P. Cuda and J. E. McPherson was consulted for this episode.
Learn What Attracts Spiders & How to Get Rid of These Pests
A basement is generally intended to store your items, not spiders.
Except the dark, moist, and cluttered or rarely cleaned environment of most basements is particularly attractive to the eight-legged insects.
Spiders are not uncommon in New England residences or buildings. Fortunately, most indoor spiders are harmless to people and pets.
But, if left unchecked – and under the right conditions – a few can turn into an infestation.
The possibility of amassing a large population of the creepy crawlers, known as a cluster, is enough to make any homeowner or property owner shudder.
To prevent the basement or cellar from becoming home to a thriving cluster of spiders, property owners should learn what attracts spiders to basements and how to keep an infestation from intensifying until expert help can arrive.
Darkness
Basements tend to get overtaken by spiders because there is an abundance of dark, quiet corners for the pests to inhabit.
Spiders are natural introverts that prefer isolation. As a result, poorly lit, undisturbed areas of a home or building seem inviting to the creatures. Spiders are also nocturnal, being most active at night.
From an evolutionary standpoint, darkness is a key aspect of a spider’s survival strategy. Under the cover of night, the insects can remain hidden from predators such as birds, bats, and even wasps.
But most house spiders have adapted to life indoors, never needing to leave the cellar of a home or business.
Once a house spider moves in, the insect becomes a lifelong roommate. So long as it is allowed, a house spider will continue raising generations of its kind inside the property.
Installing LED lights throughout an underground den or room can momentarily discourage spiders from hunting, mating, and spinning webs out of fear of being detected by predators.
LED lights are more cost-effective as well as brighter than regular halogen lights.
Until a professional can be enlisted to deal with a spider cluster or infestation, setting up some LED lighting fixtures in the affected areas may succeed in keeping the pests at bay.
Clutter, Dirt, & Dust
For spiders, clutter offers added protection from predators and a framework for female spiders to weave cobwebs, which the insects create to trap prey, travel, encase or shield egg sacs and spiderlings.
Female spiders typically store egg sacs in dark spaces to ensure the survival of their offspring.
It is not uncommon for a single female house spider to lay up to 4,000 eggs in her year-long lifetime or multiple egg sacs each containing 250 or more eggs.
Only female spiders build webs, so if a basement is covered in the cobwebs, it is a sure sign that the property will start attracting male spiders as well.
Cluttered or neglected cellars also collect dust. This attracts other pests, including carpet beetles, small flies, and tiny mold-eating pests such as booklice — all of which are incredibly appetizing to spiders.
While a space that has already been infested with spiders requires more than a routine cleanup to address the issue, homeowners or business owners can stymie the problem from expanding to other parts of the property by:
Vacuuming cobwebs
Organizing or removing clutter
Moving items such as firewood and gardening supplies outside
Spraying natural spider repellents — namely peppermint, citrus, and eucalyptus — around the area
Although not a failsafe solution, these precautions can be integral to undermining a spider infestation while waiting for pest control technicians to get involved.
Moisture
Buildings that struggle with ventilation issues may experience increased humidity and moisture in the basement. To spiders, a moist space can serve as a continuous source for both food and water.
Damp cellars promote mildew and mold growth in the pipes, cracks in the walls or flooring, dysfunctional dehumidifiers, and inside drainage systems.
Bugs such as psocids and drain flies feed on the mold, mildew, and biosolids that form in moist basements — making prey even more accessible to spiders.
It’s essential to remove excess moisture from an affected space.
Aside from the health complications that come with inhaling mold or mildew particles, such as respiratory problems, an overly humid cellar supports the ecosystem that spiders and other pests require to flourish.
Other necessary measures include sealing cracks and crevices in the walls and floors with caulk. Such gaps, however small, are entry points for household insects of all types.
Remove Spiders From Your Basement with Catseye Pest Control
Even though spiders can act as nature’s pest controllers by eliminating disease-transmitting house pests such as filth flies, letting a cluster containing at least several hundred spiders inhabit a single space is unsightly and unsettling.
Eradicating spiders from a basement or an attic starts with getting rid of the primary food sources for the pests — other insects.
Our licensed pest management technicians can customize a plan that addresses all aspects of the problem, from destroying the spider cluster’s habitat to installing tailormade barriers that can prevent reinfestation.
Get back your basement and your sanity with help from the leading experts in commercial and residential pest and nuisance wildlife control. Contact us to schedule a free inspection today.
Identifying Common Spiders In New England Homes & Businesses
Having a couple of spiders around a home or building can keep other pests at bay — but a population or cluster of spiders is not just excessive, it’s eerie.
While this may seem like an exaggeration, a single female house spider can give birth to several thousands of spiderlings during her lifetime — approximately one to two years depending on the species.
So, the possibility of a family of spiders overtaking a basement, attic, or crawlspace is not as far-fetched as property owners would hope.
In New England states — specifically Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut — non-lethal house spiders are a common nuisance:
American House Spiders
Cellar Spiders
Wolf Spiders
Jumping Spiders
Due to its adaptable nature, a house spider can live out its entire life indoors once it takes up shelter in a manmade structure. There may be several factors driving the insect inside, most notably access to food in the form of other pests like odorous house ants and water caused by excess moisture.
The last struggle any homeowner or business owner wants to face is a spider infestation moving in — permanently. To avoid this scenario, New Englanders should keep vigilant watch for signs of an infestation and know how to identify the types of spiders invading their property — as well as who to contact to resolve the issue.
1. American House Spider
The common or American house spider is a web-building indoor arachnid that hides itself in the dark or isolated corners or eaves of basements, attics, garages, and sheds.
Female American house spiders usually grow larger than males. In size, the arachnids can be compared to that of a nickel.
Coloring can range from brown with a slightly bespeckled abdomen to yellow, especially in females. If the legs of the spider have an orange tint, it is most likely male.
Another telling detail is the dark brown rings or bands encircling the joints of the legs — such markings are found on both male and female American house spiders.
Because of its similar appearance, it can be easy for non-experts to mistake the American house spider for a brown recluse.
The key difference between them is that an American house spider lacks a specific pattern on its bulbous body — a dark brown fiddle-shaped spot, which is a defining feature of a brown recluse.
Another identifier is if the arachnid is rarely seen off of its web. Should this be the case, it is probably an American house spider and not a recluse.
American house spider webbing can be difficult to spot as the silk strands are thin, resembling a tangled mess of string rather than a patterned web like those created by orb-weaving spiders.
The American house spider uses webs to travel and to cocoon its eggs or egg sacs.
Within the couple of years that it is alive, a female American house spider can birth up to 12 egg sacs, each containing upwards of 300 individual spiderling eggs.
Like many other species of spiders, the mating season isn’t reserved to a specific time of year, but it reaches a peak in late autumn. Soon after, an egg sac follows and a week later the spiderlings hatch.
For those with arachnophobia, a cluster of several hundred little spiderlings is nightmarish.
Signs of an American House Spider Infestation
The American house spider is a frequent unwelcome guest in many residences and businesses across the United States. Indicators of an American house spider infestation to look out for include:
Cobwebs: Homeowners or business owners who start to notice an abundance of cobwebs in the corners of window frames, beams, and dark corners can be more easily seen over time as the sticky strands attract dust or hair as well as prey.
Egg Sacs: Distinguishing between a dusty, neglected space and an actual American house spider dwelling can be tricky if the spider is not present. But almost always there will be a ball or cocoon of silk on a web — this is an egg sac.
Bites: These indoor arachnids are not life-threatening but will bite if alarmed or feeling unsafe. Those who occasionally find themselves waking up with tiny red bite marks may have a growing cluster of the pests on the property.
Noticing any of these signs may be a cause for concern — and easily addressed with help from a licensed professional.
2. Cellar Spider
Cellar spiders are arguably the most identifiable of the arachnid species due to its gangly body structure and extremely long legs.
Attracted to humid areas, cellar spiders tend to be found in damp spaces, whether that be in a sink cabinet or, as its name implies, in a cellar. When alarmed, this insect will bounce or vibrate on its web.
Signs of a Cellar Spider Infestation
Unlike American house spiders, cellar spiders won’t recycle or clean previously its previously used webs.
Instead, the pests will simply build new webs that overlap with the old ones, spinning a conspicuous cobweb in the process.
Female cellar spiders, which can live for approximately two years, lay three egg sacs total, holding anywhere between 10 to 60 eggs at a time.
A female carries the egg sac in her mouth while waiting for the offspring to hatch.
Seeing loose, haphazardly spun webbing around the isolated sections the home or business? This could imply that a growing population of cellar spiders is on the property.
3. Wolf Spider
With its dark brown, hairy body and intimidating size, the wolf spider resembles a tarantula.
Wolf spiders are hunters and sprinters, not web spinners. The arachnids burrow underneath objects such as leaves, sticks, or piles of clutter to both hide from predators and lure or capture prey by ambush.
Using its impressive strength, a wolf spider will hold the prey between its legs before injecting the victim with paralyzing venom through its powerful fangs.
Signs of a Wolf Spider Infestation
Indoors, wolf spiders tend to inhabit warmer areas. Houseplants are a favorite for this pest because they are often placed under sun lamps and offer soil for burrowing.
Wolf spiders are rather territorial — if a wolf spider is disturbed or feels threatened, it will bite. However, its venom isn’t toxic to people.
Female wolf spiders can live for several years — quite a long lifespan in comparison to other types of arachnids, and three times as long as its male partners.
A wolf spider infestation may not be immediately apparent as the eggs overwinter until early summer but addressing the issue before the spiderlings hatch is highly recommended.
Those who suspect a wolf spider infestation should contact a pest control expert to confront the arachnids because although not harmful to humans or pets, its bites can sting and — in rare cases — cause acute irritation or swelling.
4. Jumping Spider
Jumping spiders are the tiniest arachnids listed in this article, at only half of an inch in length.
In the U.S., there are around 300 species of jumping spiders but thankfully New England is home to just three:
Zebra Jumper: As its name suggests, the zebra jumper has stripes covering its body.
Bold Jumper: The body of a bold jumping spider is mostly black with white stripes on its legs and a white dot on its back.
Tan Jumper: Tan jumping spiders are light brown, with darker markings along the abdomen.
The mating habits depend on the species of jumper, but in general jumping spiders mate during the spring and summer months before the female gives birth to an average of 200 offspring.
Signs of a Jumping Spider Infestation
Jumpers are hunters. Rather than produce webs to ensnare insects, a jumping spider uses its swift reflexes to catch smaller bugs. It can leap up to 20 times the length of its body.
To keep itself stable when jumping far distances, these spiders will deploy a silk thread known as a dragline before taking off, essentially acting as a safety net for the pest.
Draglines can be incredibly difficult to spot but should near-invisible strands of silk thread be plastered to the counters or other surfaces throughout a home, it can be a sign that a jumper is nearby.
Another possible clue of a jumping spider on the property is seeing remnants of molten skin, as the arachnids will shed during its development into a full-grown spider.
But as this type of arachnid does not leave behind webbing, the most obvious indication of an infestation is seeing the spider(s).
It tends to station itself near windows and doors, awaiting other insects to fly by.
Confront Your Spider Problem with Catseye Pest Control
Despite the integral role spiders play as natural pest controllers, keeping them in-check is important to both your property and sanity.
Residential or commercial buildings that are struggling with a spider infestation typically lead to the discovery of other significant issues — such as growing populations of household bugs or insects throughout the property.
But the professionals at Catseye Pest Control have the expertise and experience to find the root of the cause. Through our Spider Control service, clients can put their concerns to rest.
Our licensed technicians will inspect the affected areas and design a customized treatment plan that is safe for everyone on-site and leaves your property pest-free.
Take back your home or business and contact us to schedule a free inspection today.
A very large walkingstick appears to rest on the wall of a NASA building at the Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, D.C. Image credit: Larry Coy
In October of 2008, The Natural History Museum of London headlined the discovery of the world’s longest insect, Phobaeticus chani, a giant stick insect from the rainforest of Borneo. This behemoth checked in at 22 inches in length and displaced the former record holder from Indonesia, Phobaeticus serratipes, another giant at 14 inches. Recently, Bug of the Week received a remarkable image of a walkingstick that make these gargantuans pale in comparison. The northern walkingstick in our feature image is at least 40 feet long. Yikes! Well, the clever photographer who took this crazy image assured me the camera magic that captured both the walking stick on a nearby window and the reflection of the NASA building behind him was not a trick of post-production. Whew, what a relief, but humans were never really in danger of being attacked by giant walkingsticks. They are vegetarians.
Walkingsticks are also known as stick insects or leaf insects in various parts of the world. Our local walkingsticks, northern walkingsticks like the one in our image, don’t quite measure up to those Asian giants, but at almost four inches these rascals are among the longest insects found in Maryland. They make their living eating foliage of trees and shrubs. In some years they are quite abundant and actually defoliate patches of trees, especially along rocky ridgetops. Although lacking the tough armor of beetles and evasive flight of butterflies, they have perfected the art of crypsis, that is, they have an uncanny resemblance to features of their environment. This ruse of looking like branches of the trees on which they feed helps them avoid detection by hungry predators.
In addition to having greatly elongated body regions and appendages matching the colors and textures of twigs, walkingsticks move and pose in ways designed to fool sharp-eyed predators. As walkingsticks search for leaves, they sway slowly back and forth, mimicking the movement of a branch in the breeze. When not feeding or actively moving about, they assume a branch-like position with the front pair of legs extended directly forward. Their ability to hold an unflinching pose for hours is the envy of every mime. Unlike many adult insects, northern walkingstick insects never develop wings and nymphs and adults are quite similar in appearance. Some species of stick insects lay eggs on plants while others simply deposit them on the ground. For the northern walkingstick, winter is spent in the egg stage. A southern cousin of northern walkingstick, the two-striped walkingstick, is the longest insect in the United States and measures about half a foot. When camouflage fails to fool a hungry predator, walkingsticks may have another trick up their twig. Some species, including two-striped walkingsticks and elegant phasmatids, a.k.a. Chilean chinchimolles we met in previous episodes, have evolved glands on their thorax that emit foul-smelling, irritating chemicals to foil attacks by their enemies.
Acknowledgements
Bug of the Week thanks Larry Coy for providing the remarkable image of the northern walking stick featured in this episode. We also thank Dr. Audrey Grez of the University of Chile for identifying the chinchemolle. The following references were used in preparation of this episode: “4-Methyl-1-hepten-3-one, the Defensive Compound from Agathemera elegans (Philippi) (Phasmatidae) Insecta” by Guillermo Schmeda-Hirschmann, and “Defensive spray of a phasmid insect” by Thomas Eisner. Dr. Shrewsbury boldly modeled the rather large walking stick hair accessory in the Costa Rican rainforest.
This docile German yellowjacket queen made an early appearance inside a home.
Last weekend while dining with family in their rural New Jersey home, we were thoroughly entertained by the aerial antics of a rather large wasp. This yellow and black beauty made several sorties from an undisclosed location in the kitchen and swooped about the chandelier suspended above the table. While zooming wasps might be disconcerting at some dinner parties, for bug geeks and their kin, a visit from hymenopteran royalty in the dead of winter is a welcome reminder that spring is not all too far away. To discover exactly who this fancy flier was and what she was doing at our winter repast, we turned to esteemed colleagues Drs. Nancy Breisch and Al Green, world authorities on six-legged creatures found indoors. Here is what the experts had to say. “You have captured the image of a beautiful queen of the German yellowjacket, Vespula germanica, and you are correct, she has mistakenly become active months before she should have. The first invaders to the U.S. (1970s) spread extremely rapidly because the overwintering queens, foundresses of the annual spring colonies, searched for voids in vertical facades (mostly building cavities), unlike the typical behavior everywhere else in the world where they concentrate on finding hollows in the ground to begin their nests. This meant they weren’t competing as much with our native Vespula species. All Vespula are cavity nesters and can nest almost anywhere but our natives are usually in the ground and for the first 10 to 15 years after invasion, V. germanica was usually in a structural void. When Vespula strikes it rich with a nice pre-existing void location, all the effort of enlarging the cavity (almost every worker leaving a ground nest has a mouthful of dirt) is channeled instead into making carton so their nests have much larger and thicker envelopes. By the 1980s, U.S. German yellowjacket populations began to display a higher incidence of the more characteristic ground nesting behavior. We found our first ground nest of V. germanica in a grassy area behind the long-lost Maryland Book Exchange (College Park, MD) in the late 1980s. Every year we collected for Johns Hopkins allergy research we could count on a nest in the dairy barn wall, and after that structure was torn down we got them year after year from a nest in the hay loft of the sheep barn.” A German yellowjacket queen, now that’s cool.
What could be better than dinner and a show? This pretty German yellowjacket queen emerged prematurely from her winter rest, fooled by the warmth of a home. After entertaining diners with aerial acrobatics and spending the night in a fruit bowl, she was relocated in a tool shed outdoors to chill-out and await the return of warm weather.
While making breakfast the following morning, we discovered the redoubt of our royal yellowjacket, who was hiding beneath an apple at the bottom of the fruit bowl. With her hibernal rest unwittingly ended too soon, she was not interested in any sort of aggressive behavior and we were able to admire her up-close and personal. After glamming for a few minutes, the queen grew a bit restless and after taking a poll, we decided to relocate the royal. The new residence for the queen would be a nearby tool shed. Hopefully, she will settle in this unheated structure and await the arrival of true spring when she can initiate her colony and produce workers. Workers will help rid our plants of soft-bodied insect pests and assist in the awesome task of pollination. Wasps and wasp nests also provide a nutritious source of food for mammals including bears, raccoons, and skunks, and several species of birds. Yellowjackets will, of course, heroically defend their nest, which sometimes require extirpation if humans or pets are imperiled.
Bug of the Week thanks Gordon and Sheri for providing the backdrop for this week’s episode in their dining room, and colleagues Drs. Nancy Breisch and Al Green for the remarkable account of V. germanica.
Last summer a four-lined-stink bug hunter prepared to dig a burrow in the ground where a sand box once rested.
Last week we braved frigid temperatures in Maryland to visit larvae of a really cool beetle, the eyed elater, chillin’out beneath the bark of an oak tree, brrr. So, let’s warm up and start this week’s adventure on a sunny beach in Costa Rica where we meet fascinating sand wasps. Sand wasps belong to a family of predatory wasps known as crabronids. After excavating burrows in the sand in which to raise their offspring, female wasps hunt other insects that serve as food for their young. Some, including those in the genus Stictia, have colorful common names like “horse guard” and “insecto policia”. These agile fliers often frequent farms where they capture horse flies as they hover and land on horses and other livestock. Stictia sand wasps deliver a paralyzing sting to their victim, transport the fly back to their sandy burrow, and stuff them into a subterranean crypt. Their victims are consumed by wasp larvae that hatch from eggs deposited by female flies. After provisioning the burrow with a full complement of paralyzed prey for her offspring, the wasp will close the burrow with sand. She may add debris from the surrounding area to camouflage the nest. You see, sand wasps have their own complement of enemies including ants that raid sand wasp nests and devour the young within.
On a sunny beach in Costa Rica burrowing arthropods are busy. A ghost crab disappears into its subterranean refuge. Above the high tide line, a crabronid wasp prepares its burrow to receive paralyzed prey which serve as food for its young as they develop beneath the sand. On a warm day in July in a sandy yard in Maryland, a stink bug hunter quickly disappears beneath the sand as she readies the nest for her young.
Keeping with our wistful reverie of warmer times to come, we stop by a sandy backyard in Maryland on a warm summer’s day to meet another sand wasp. This little beauty, Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus, is sometimes called the four-lined-stink bug hunter due to its propensity to capture stink bugs and other members of the true bug clan (Hemiptera) that serve as food for its young. Although I did not have the opportunity to witness a hunting victory of the four-lined-stink bug hunter, several researchers and naturalists have seen this clever tracker provisioning their burrows with nymphs of the noxious brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB). Sand wasps join a cabal of other beneficial predators, including assassin bugs, spiders, and mantids we met in previous episodes contributing to the demise of BMSB in our region. Way to go wasps!
Acknowledgements
Two interesting articles, “Survey of Native Biocontrol Agents of the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug in Pennsylvania Fruit Orchards and Adjacent Habitat” by David Biddinger, John Tooker, Alex Surcica, and Greg Krawczyk, and “Nesting Behavior of the Sand Wasp Stictia maculata (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae) in Costa Rica” by Robert Matthews, Richard Saunders and Janice Matthews, were consulted in preparing this episode.
