THEY’RE BAAAAACK! THE STINKBUGS OF CRETE

It could be the wind. Or the falling temperatures. (OK, the temperature hasn’t dropped that much; we’re still wearing shorts and T-shorts most of the day.) Or the fact that most of the resort-style tourists have left Crete until next spring, taking their own unique scent back to the colder climes.  Regardless of the cause, another member of Crete’s bounteous and unique  fauna population - the “stinkbug”, aka “stinkworm”- has returned.

If you are from Britain or Myanmar, or more recently from the middle U.S., you are likely familiar with stinkbugs and the becoming aroma they can being to your home – kind of like the smell of a rotting corpse, I’m told (although I cannot confirm this: I’ve never been near a rotting corpse). However, this unusual member of Crete’s bug family is not the shield-shaped insect that infests houses in these parts of the world.  This guy is definitely a millipede of some sort: slow-moving, zillions of legs, brown, about 3 inches long, and often found making curious shapes on walls.

Crete Stinkbug

Another Crete Stinkbug

When we first arrived in Crete, I was told by my landlord at that time to not, under any circumstances, kill it by squishing.  If we were to find one in our apartment, we were to carefully pick it up with a tissue to protect our hands and deposit it, alive, back outside where it belongs.  Even the cats avoid them, and we know how cats love to eat bugs.

About one month later, I headed to the bathroom one morning to neaten it up after we’d finished our morning ablutions and was assaulted by one of the worst smells I have ever experienced.  Did the sewer (sewer? in rural Crete?) back up? Had an incredibly odorous form of mold suddenly grown in the damp of the shower?  Or had someone just left a malodorous methane “gift” after using the toilet?

I searched around the bathroom to find the source.  I peered into the corners of the shower and thoroughly cleaned the toilet.  No luck.  Just as I was about to give up, I lifted the shower mat from the floor and saw the squished remains of one large stinkbug; he had crawled under the mat and someone had stepped on him. I rushed outside with the mat and hosed it down, and then proceeded to disinfect the bathroom floor and make my contribution to the hole in the ozone layer with a good douse of air freshener.

So that was my first experience with the stinkbug’s stink.

By my nature I am curious, and always want to know the facts, background and/or history of anything new that I come across. A new bug?  What is it called, where does it live, what is its lifecycle and what are its natural predators? My step-daughter has a Cretan friend, Stavros, who is a walking encyclopedia of the plants and animals of Crete.  Unfortunately, he was not around, so off to the internet I went.

Hours (literally) later, I was still stumped. I found plenty of information on the better-known shield-shaped stink bug, like that in Britain and the U.S., but nothing about our Cretan version.  Finally I came across a great website, whatsthatbug.com, that has as much information in once place about almost any bug you can imagine.  And they have a service where you can submit pictures and descriptions of a bug, and they will try to identify it for you.  I snapped some great photos and sent in my request.  Maybe someday I will get a response, but not yet.

So here we are, with more of these buggers hanging around, and wads of tissue wasted on their gentle removal from the house.  And I still don’t know exactly what they are.  Drop me a line if you happen to know…

…but they do make interesting shapes on the walls!