WTVY - Alabama News - Headlines

Posted: Mon 6:16 AM, Jan 17, 2011
Reporter: AP

Stinky Kudzu-Eating Bug Moves from Georgia to Alabama

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - An invasive kudzu-eating bug that swept
across Georgia last year has now been detected in Alabama.

Though you might be tempted to celebrate the arrival of a bug that eats The Vine That Ate the South, this kudzu bug stinks - both literally and figuratively. It also has a taste for other more valuable plants, like soybeans.

When temperatures drop, the pea-sized bugs - also known as the lablab bug or the globular stink bug - invades homes in hordes. When threatened or crushed, they emit a foul odor.

In November, Auburn University researchers collected two individual specimens in east Alabama border counties, Cleburne and Cherokee. They now expect them to spread quickly across the kudzu-rich state.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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