An invasive kudzu-eating bug that swept across Georgia last year has now been detected in Alabama.Though you might be tempted to celebrate the arrival of a bug that eats kudzu, this bug stinks. Both literally and figuratively.
When temperatures drop, the pea-sized bugs -- also known as the lablab bug or the globular stink bug -- invades homes in hordes. When threatened or crushed, they emit a foul odor.
The bugs have been found as high as 30 stories up, coating the window sills of Atlanta condo high rises.
More seriously, the bug likes to munch on plants other than kudzu, including soybeans. It also could be a threat to other legume crops such as peanuts.
Auburn University researchers collected two individual specimens in east Alabama border counties, Cleburne and Cherokee. They now expect them to spread quickly across kudzu-rich Alabama.
Known scientifically as Megacopta cribraria, the bulbous, pea-sized bug is native to India and China. Researchers have not figured out how it got to Georgia. It might have caught a plane to Atlanta.
Kudzu itself is an Asian import. It was widely planted in the 1930s as an erosion prevention measure. When it found itself in a warmer and wetter world with none of its natural predators, kudzu quickly became a menace, spreading as much as a foot a day and eventually smothering anything that stood in its way.
Read more in the original article here.
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