This week's Animal Oddity all started a few weeks ago when one of my National Wildlife Federation colleagues, Senior Scientist Doug Inkley, spotted a strange insect in his rural Maryland home. He instantly recognized it as the brown marmorated stink bug, an insect that was originally native to Asia but was accidentally introduced to North America a decade ago.
In that short time span, this stink bug has spread like wildfire, becoming a new agricultural pest and invading people's homes, where they spend the winter dormant.
With the recent warm days in the Mid-Atlantic states, the stink bugs have started waking up and becoming active and Dr. Inkley started noticing more and more inside his home. So, ever the inquisitive scientist, he decided to investigate to see just how many of these invaders his home harbored.
Watch this video to see the shocking results of his investigation (warning, not for the squeamish).
Find out everything you wanted to know about stink bugs, including information on how to deal with them in your home and garden, from the National Wildlife Federation.
This video from Animal Planet goes even deeper into these fascinating but troublesome insects.
Get the latest odd animal stories, news and behaviors on my blog, Animal Oddities.
And if you're a glutton for punishment and want to be freaked out be other insect oddities, you need to check out this, this and this.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.