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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.
- Female, body length 15mm
- 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.
Males
- Body length 15mm
- We found most of those bugs were in golden brown background colour, but we also found some that are pale brown in colour.
Females
- We sometimes found this bug in Karawatha Forest on different type of gum tree trunks during mid summer.
- On summer Jan 2004, we found this bug guarding her young on a gum leaf. The gum tree was in a suburban house front yard.
- 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.
- Adult body length 15mm, 1st instars body length 3mm
- 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.
Maternal care in Stink Bug
2nd instars
- 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.
4th instars
- Those nymphs were found near the adult Golden Brown Shield Bug and we believe they were the Golden Brown Shield Bug nymph.
5th instars
- The 5th instars is the last instars stage. They will became adults very soon. They are now look very similar to the adults except the wings are yet fully development.
- They can be found on different type of gum tree trunks.
- Reference:
- 1. Stink Bugs of Australia - FaunaKeys, Australian Museum online 2003.
- 2. Species Anchises parvulus (Westwood, 1837) - Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of the Environment and Heritage, Commonwealth of Australia 2005.
- 3. Anchises Stål, 1867 - by Gerry Cassis, Emma Betts and Michael Elliott, Stink Bugs, Fauna Net, Australian Museum 2002
