For farmers, it's a potential catastrophe.
The stinkbug has become a formidable agricultural pest, costing growers of apples, peaches, corn, soybeans, and more millions.
Last year, Pennsylvania's $69 million apple industry took a 25 percent hit. Things weren't any better in the Garden State.
Compared with that, the homeowners have it easy. The insects don't bite, transmit disease, or chomp away at the floor joists. But they do buzz annoyingly, leave brown trails of excrement, and emit a stinky odor when squished.
The United States has several native species of stinkbugs, and some are beneficial. But this one - the brown marmorated stinkbug - is native to China, Korea, and Japan.
Discovered in Allentown in 1996, it has since been detected in 33 states. But its stronghold is the Mid-Atlantic.
In Asia, natural predators keep it in check. Here, it has none.
Entomologists had hoped the enemies that attack native stinkbugs might adjust their diets and control the Asian invaders.
Alas, "they try, but they're not good enough," said Kim Hoelmer, a research entomologist at a federal agriculture invasive-pest lab in Newark, Del.
Researchers are amazed at the broad range of host plants - more than 300.
Last year, the insects went after soybeans, tree fruit, tomatoes, peppers, sweet corn, field corn, grapes, and raspberries, said George Hamilton, a pest-management specialist at Rutgers University.
The insect inserts its needlelike mouth parts and sucks out the juice.
Left behind is a corky, dry dent, which nixes any chance of selling the fruit as is.
