True! Ask any citizen of Alberta, Canada. They would tell you of their wee harlequin bugs. They might even say it stinks.
Harlequin brought on an image at Angelkeep of steamy romance novels, usually in the wee publication form of small mass market soft-covers. Some scenes in a Harlequin could make an Angelkeep avid reader blush, the reason none exist in the Angelkeep 2000 volume library.
Sighting a pair of wee harlequin bugs on the back of Angelkeep’s milkweed plants, while searching for monarch butterfly eggs, certainly related to the steamy romance novel venue. The pair were, well, “attached” might be a polite term for publication, and moving simultaneously. Was it haste to hide, or was it a romantic waltz with visions of progeny?
Actually Alberta’s use of wee harlequin likely came from the alternate definition of a mute pantomime character dressed with diamond-patterns. Something like a jester. Harlequin could also serve as an adjective alluding to varicolored or bright multicolored. That certainly described this black stink bug with bright red-orange designs.
Most of Angelkeep’s former stink bugs appeared as green or brown. Browns were found inside, many on their backs with feet sticking up into the air. Dead stink bugs are the best to find, according to Angelkeep citizenry. Squash a live stink bug and release the less than romantic aroma.
Stink bugs’ shield-shaped hard shell has a ridge across the top. On the wee harlequin the ridge has a centered bright red-orange diamond against a black background. Off the sides of the diamond, running along the ridge on both sides, laid a slender moon-shape red-orange stripe, resembling the blade of a sword with the diamond being the sword’s cross-guard or the quillen. The lower four-fifths of the shell formed a “U” shape coming to a tailing peak. This was the point of “relationship” for Angelkeep’s observed romantic engagement couple. Centered in the lower half of the “U” were two opposing triangles matching the bright red-orange, perhaps giving the original naming and describing scientist an image of bleeding stab wound points from the swords.
One original description of this bug came from Johan Christian Fabricius who called it Cimex carnifex in 1798. Then along came a new study and the name Cosmopepla bimaculata. The second name appearing in 1865 came from someone named Thomas. Wikipedia claimed the Thomas was Thomas Say, quite suspect since the link to American entomologist Thomas Say credits his death in 1834. If you can’t trust Wikipedia, who can…well, you really can’t trust Wikipedia.
The Integrated Taxonomic Information System — ITIS for short — named this particular stink bug Cosmopepla lintneriana. This name came into use in 1909. A common name, at least outside of Alberta, was twice-stabbed stink bug. The family of stink bugs, Pentatomidae, originating in 1815, also carried with it another common name, that of terrestrial turtle bug. But, what’s in a name?
If ITIS can be trusted, then the Thomas description noted in 1865, came from a surname Thomas. Whoever slipped Thomas Say into that 1865 accreditation on Wikipedia may have been thinking of the Thomas Say who described Say’s Firefly. Say’s Firefly became the Indiana State Insect with Bill 1034’s signing by Governor Eric Holcomb.
Britannica confirmed Thomas Say’s death in 1834 at New Harmony, Indiana, the location where he finally named his variation of firefly. Say did describe a stink bug. Cleverly he named it Say Stink Bug. But, what’s in a name?
Regardless of what you call Angelkeep’s new stink bug, the twice-stabbed stink bug was without a doubt the most beautiful stink bug in the area. Those normally hosted on milk thistle, not milkweed. Angelkeep’s female wee harlequin bug had not yet arrived at the stage of egg-laying when observed. Perhaps she moved onward at the appropriate time to lay eggs on a thistle, also available at Angelkeep. The alternative ragweed plant, sometimes used as host by a twice-stabbed stink bug, can also be found later in the wilder habitat corners of Angelkeep.
Speaking of wild, if squashed, what would a wee harlequin stink bug have smelled like? Probably like an overripe outhouse, just like the local brown and green stink bugs. Beauty never promised fragrant.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
