Musgraveia sulciventris

Musgraveia sulciventris
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Superfamily: Pentatomoidea
Family: Tessaratomidae
Subfamily: Oncomerinae
Genus: Musgraveia
Species: M. sulciventris
Binomial name
Musgraveia sulciventris
Stål, 1863
Synonyms

Oncoscelis sulciventris

Musgraveia sulciventris is a large stink bug, referred to as the bronze orange bug or more commonly called stinkbug. It is an Australian insect in the family Tessaratomidae. A familiar visitor to gardens and orchards, it is considered a pest, particularly on plants in the citrus group. Adults grow to 25 mm (1 in) long. They suck sap from the tips of plants.[1][2]

Taxonomy

Swedish entomologist Carl Stål described the species in 1863 as Oncoscelis sulciventris, from a collection near Moreton Bay in Queensland.[3][4] English entomologists Dennis Leston and G.G.E. Scudder reclassified the bronze orange bug as Musgraveia sulciventris in 1957 due to reorganisation of Oncoscelis and related genera.[5] It is the type species of the genus Musgraveia.[6]

Description and life cycle

Mating takes place between late November till early March around Sydney. The female lays up to four clutches of eggs. Each individual mating between a male and a female takes 3 to 5 days, with a batch of 10–14 eggs laid 1–3 days afterwards. These are deposited on the undersurface of a leaf, generally new growth. The bright green spherical eggs are around 2.5 mm (0.1 in) in diameter. The incubation period varies according to weather, but at 25° C and 60% humidity averaged around 7.4 days to hatch.[7] The nymph stages are so different in colour they could be mistaken for different species.[8] The species has five instars or stages of development. The first instars remain huddled near the eggs,[7] and are transparent pale green with greenish white legs and antennae and orange eyes. The second instar is more buff or pale yellow.[9]

Life cycle of Musgraveia sulciventris
A cluster of 13 small spherical eggs glued together on a twig. Visible through each are the pair of eyes of the developing embryos, except for an unfertilized egg.
Small flattened ovoid bug wandering on a twig. Empty eggs lie below them with holes at the tops.
An oval dorsoventrally flattened nymph of the bronze orange bug on a citrus leaf.
A bronze orange bug clinging to the underside of an orange leaf. The shape of its body is distinctly shield-like.
Left: A cluster of bronze orange bug eggs. The embryos can be made out through the clear egg membranes, as well as the small ring of micropylar processes on each egg. The second egg from the bottom right is unfertilized and remains a murky green; Center left: Nymphs emerging from the eggs. Early instars of bronze orange bugs are bright green in color; Center right: A fourth or fifth instar nymph resting on a citrus leaf. It is now brilliantly orange in color with black margins and a small black dot at the center of its body; Right: An adult bronze orange bug on the underside of a citrus leaf. The adults are much drabber in color than the nymphs. Below it is also a green third instar nymph

Distribution and habitat

Musgraveia sulciventris is found in Queensland and New South Wales in Eastern Australia, as far south as Wollongong.[6] Its range has spread significantly since European colonisation.[10]

Ecology

Its native host plants include desert lime (Citrus glauca), the Australian finger lime (Citrus australasica)[7] and Correas.[11] It has become a major pest of cultivated citrus crops, where it sucks the fluid from new growth and young fruit, causing them to turn yellow and drop off.[8] Whole crops can be devastated.[12]

The common name of stinkbug refers to a malodorous liquid the insect sprays when threatened. It is composed of alkanes, cimicine and aldehydes from glands in the thorax. These compounds are primarily for protection against fellow arthropods (to which they are lethal). However, the defensive chemicals of M. sulciventris are notable for being among the most debilitating to vertebrates, probably a defence specifically aimed against birds.[13] They can cause damage to human skin and even cause temporary blindness if sprayed unto the eyes.[14][15][15][16] The bronze orange bug can spray the liquid at a target up to 0.6 m (2 ft 0 in) away.[12]

Insects that prey on the bronze orange bug include the common assassin bug (Pristhesancus plagipennis), the predatory Asopinae bug species Amyotea hamatus, and the parasitoid wasps Eupelmus poggioni and Telenomus spp..[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Bronze Orange Bug (Musgraveia sulciventris)". OzAnimals,com. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Bronze Orange Bug – Musgraveia sulciventris". Brisbane Insects. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  3. 1 2 Australian Biological Resources Study (17 February 2013). "Species Musgraveia sulciventris (Stål, 1863)". Australian Faunal Directory. Canberra, Australian Capital Territory: Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Australian Government. Retrieved 17 August 2016.
  4. ↑ Stål, Carl (1863). "Hemipterorum exoticorum generum et specierum nonnullarum novarum descriptiones". Transactions of the Entomological Society of London. 3 (1): 571–603 [598].
  5. ↑ Leston, Dennis; Scudder,G.G.E (1957). "The taxonomy of the bronze orange-bug and related Australian Oncomerinae (Hemiptera: Tessaratomidae)". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 10 (114): 439–48. doi:10.1080/00222935708655982.
  6. 1 2 Sinclair, David Patrick (2000). "A generic revision of the Oncomerinae (Heteroptera: Pentatomoidea: Tessaratomidae)" (PDF). Memoirs-Queensland Museums. 46 (1): 307–30.
  7. 1 2 3 McDonald, F.J.D. (1969). "Life-cycle of the bronze orange bug Musgraveia sulciventris (Stal) (Hemiptera : Tessaratomidae)". Australian Journal of Zoology. 17 (5): 817–20. doi:10.1071/ZO9690817.
  8. 1 2 Hockings, F.D. (2014). Pests, Diseases and Beneficials: Friends and Foes of Australian Gardens. Collingwood, Victoria: CSIRO Publishing. p. 57. ISBN 9781486300228.
  9. ↑ Kumar, R. (1969). "Morphology and relationships of the Pentatomoidea (Heteroptera)". Australian Journal of Zoology. 17 (3): 553–606. doi:10.1071/ZO9690553.
  10. ↑ Monteith, Geoff B. (2011). "Maternal Care, Food Plants and Distribution of Australian Oncomerinae (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Tessaratomidae)" (PDF). Australian Entomologist. 38 (1): 37–48.
  11. ↑ Farrow, Roger (2014). Insects of South-Eastern Australia: An Ecological and Behavioural Guide. Collingwood, Victoria: CSIRO Publishing. p. 157. ISBN 9781486304752.
  12. 1 2 Reuther, Walter (1989). The Citrus Industry: Crop protection, postharvest technology, and early history of citrus research in California. Oakland, California: UCANR Publications. p. 53. ISBN 9780931876875.
  13. ↑ Jan Raška (2009). Function of metathoracic scent glands in terrestrial Heteroptera (PDF) (Bachelor thesis). Univerzita Karlova v Praze. Retrieved May 1, 2011.
  14. ↑ Jonathan Figueroa Jiménez & Nohely Trabal. "Piezosternum subulatum (Thunberg 1783)" (PDF). Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. Retrieved May 1, 2011.
  15. 1 2 John L. Capinera (2008). Encyclopedia of entomology. Springer. p. 2749. ISBN 978-1-4020-6242-1.
  16. ↑ Jocelia Grazia; Randall T. Schuhb & Ward C. Wheeler (2008). "Phylogenetic relationships of family groups in Pentatomoidea based on morphology and DNA sequences (Insecta: Heteroptera)" (PDF). Cladistics. Wiley-Blackwell. 24 (6): 932–976. doi:10.1111/j.1096-0031.2008.00224.x. Retrieved April 27, 2011.
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