green vegetable bug piercing crops with a toxic bite
- Size
- Length: 1–1.5 cm
- Lifespan
- 6–12 months
- Diet
- Herbivorous: feeds on sap from fruits and stems of beans, tomatoes, citrus and other crops using piercing-sucking mouthparts. Injects toxic saliva, leaving discoloured, corky scars.
- Habitat
- Gardens, orchards and farms, particularly where beans, tomatoes and citrus are grown. The scented invaders of the vegetable patch.
- Range
- Throughout North and South Islands in gardens, orchards and farms where host plants are grown. Most common in warm, lowland agricultural areas with intensive vegetable and fruit production.
- Endemism
- Introduced
- Main Threats
- None. This introduced pest is widespread and abundant. Controlled using integrated pest management in commercial crops, but faces no conservation threats.
- Population
- A major agricultural pest originally from Africa or the Mediterranean. Causes significant damage to crops by sucking sap from fruits and stems. Populations boom in warm summers.
- Conservation Status
- Introduced
The skunk of the garden insect world. A bug that looks handsome but smells like old socks.
Resplendent in a shiny, emerald-green shield of armour, the green vegetable bug looks rather handsome until disturbed. At the slightest provocation, it releases a potent, oily spray from glands on its thorax that smells distinctly of rotten coriander or old socks. It is a chemical warning sign that says: I may be small, but I will make you regret picking me up. A bug that fights with stink.
Beyond its olfactory offences, it is a voracious feeder. Using a needle-like mouthpart, it pierces the skin of fruits and vegetables to suck out the juices, injecting enzymes that rot the flesh from the inside out. A tomato attacked by a green vegetable bug becomes a hard, white, inedible lump, a testament to the bug's destructive efficiency. A bug that ruins dinner.
They are particularly fond of congregating on warm walls in autumn, seeking shelter for the winter, which often leads to unwelcome invasions of homes and sheds. Despite being a pest, there is something oddly dignified about their bright green colouration, a bold fashion statement in a world of brown and grey.
They are a reminder that nature is not always quaint. Sometimes it is smelly, destructive and relentlessly hungry. Control is difficult, as they fly well and reproduce rapidly. The best defence remains a keen eye and a quick vacuum cleaner, though one must be prepared for the aftermath of scent that lingers long after the bug is gone.
As an introduced pest, the green vegetable bug has no lineage in Māori tradition. It is a modern arrival, a manuhiri (visitor) that overstayed its welcome and began eating the host's food.
The garden is warm. The green vegetable bug sits on a tomato, emerald-green and handsome. A hand reaches. The bug sprays. The smell lingers. The tomato is ruined. The bug flies away. It does not know it is a pest. It does not know it overstayed its welcome.
It just wants to eat. The challenges of biosecurity and the constant vigilance required to protect kai. The green vegetable bug is proof.