Golden Brown Shield Bug - Anchises parvulus
Family Pentatomidae
This page contains pictures and information about Golden Brown Shield Bugs that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Adult body length 15mm, 1st instars body length 3mm
- The adult and nymph Golden Brown Stink Bugs are brown yellow in colour with brown dots and patterns. The adult is medium in size with the relatively round disk shape body.
- We first found this bug guarding her young on a gum leaf. The gum tree was in a suburban house front yard.
Maternal care in Stink Bug
- Protection of eggs is quite common in the insect order, especially in this Pentatomidae family. Some stink bug species exhibit maternal care by standing guard over their egg batches. This Golden Brown Stink Bug is a good example. The mother bug guard not only the eggs, but also the 1st instars until they become 2nd instars.
- When bugs just hatched. They stay around their eggs cases. The1st instars nymph bugs do not suck plant sap when they first emerge. They feed on bacteria which the female deposited on the eggs when she laid them. The bugs have to liquefy the food with saliva first before they can feed on it.
- We saw this stink bug mother with her new hatched babies on a gum tree leaf. When we get near to have a closer look, the mother bug always tilt her body towards us blocking our vision to her babies. No matter how we disturbed her, she just stayed on top of her young bugs and did not move a bit.
- We cut the leaf and brought them home to see what will happen next. Two days later, the young bugs molted and become 2nd instars. Those small bugs then walked away from their mother. The mother finish her duty as the bug mother.
- We found this bug the second time in Karawatha Forest on a gum tree trunk during mid summer.
- Reference:
- 1. Stink Bugs of Australia - FaunaKeys, Australian Museum online 2003.
- 2. Anchises parvulus - Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of the Environment and Heritage, Commonwealth of Australia 2005.
