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March 28, 2010 7:08 AM   Subscribe

What is this bug that I found in my room yesterday?

It looks a lot like a cockroach to me, but not quite like the ones I've ever seen. I'm really hoping it's not a cockroach. Here's a picture of it, and another of it on its back. The penny is there for scale.
posted by Ashley801 to Science & Nature (7 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Looks like a type of "stink bug". Found one in my living room this morning!
posted by p3t3 at 7:12 AM on March 28, 2010


Yeah, stink bug. They like to converge on warm cozy houses during cold weather. A friend of mine was having problems with her heat pump, and when the repairman fired it up, it exploded with the heat of ignition of a thousand stinkbugs clogging the pipe. If you only have one, count your blessings. They are harmless but smelly. Release yours to the outdoors.
posted by acrasis at 7:16 AM on March 28, 2010


This site can help a lot, although I think that the previous commentors nailed it.
posted by Danf at 7:46 AM on March 28, 2010


I have a gazillion of these guys in this house. They're harmless - they rarely do anything except lie there actually - except for when they suddenly decide to fly at you buzzing, which can cause sudden heart attacks and screaming in many humans. Mine are (thank the gods) not even particularly smelly so we just consider them small, quiet roommates.
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:30 AM on March 28, 2010


Stink bug. I had a friendly one in my room for weeks. He only stank once.

It seems like they were green when I was a kid, but I only see brown ones now.
posted by cmoj at 9:41 AM on March 28, 2010


It is probably the brown marmorated stink bug which is pretty new to North America. We used to think of them as harmless roommates. Then, we found they were over wintering in the gap between the brick fireplace and the old gas insert. When we removed the gas insert, there were hundreds of them. Now, we aggressively suck them into the vacuum as soon as we find them.
posted by onhazier at 10:03 AM on March 28, 2010


Response by poster: Woohoo, I'm so happy it's not a roach! (And a little disturbed at the thought of hundreds of them in the walls.) Thank you, all.
posted by Ashley801 at 11:02 AM on March 28, 2010


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