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| Holy sh#t!! What is that?! It's massive, man... |
At first I thought this prime specimen was a big tick that thankfully
died it's last days on the porch, (I had a bout with bad sickness during college because of a tick bite, but more on that some other time), because of the flatness that's typically associated with the bug.
But it had these large wings that had settled askew and out from
the body, with colors that just didn't add up to a regular ole tick.
I got a piece of wood from a bamboo stalk that I had I cut down with my trusty pen knife on my key chain, during another one of my walks around town on a hot, lazy afternoon that had revealed a stand of thick, hearty bamboo grown by a homeowner to obscure their backyard from a parking lot in town, and then I did when any self-respecting country person would do: I flipped that bitch over to get a closer look at it.
Wow! I'd never seen markings like these before, and now I know why: the shield bug feeds only on certain types of trees and wood, the kind that's preferably been cured through time and the rain of many humid summers. I hope it took out some mighty foes before dying flat on it's back, like a true warrior would want.
To learn more, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatomoidea.
