Researchers from the University of Georgia and Dow AgroSciences have identified a kudzu-eating pest in northeast Georgia that has never been found in the Western Hemisphere. Unfortunately, the bug also eats legume crops, especially soybeans.

The bug has tentatively been identified as the bean plataspid (Megacopta cribraria), a native to India and China. It is pea-sized and brownish in color with a wide posterior, says Dan Suiter, an entomologist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES). “It kind of waddles when it walks on a surface, but it flies really well,” he says.

It’s also commonly called lablab bug and globular stink bug. Like its distant cousin the stink bug, when threatened, it releases a chemical that stinks.

Suiter and CAES diagnostician Lisa Ames first saw the pest when samples were sent to them in mid-October from UGA Cooperative Extension agents and pest control professionals in Barrow, Gwinnett and Jackson counties. Samples have since arrived from Clarke, Hall, Greene, Oconee and Walton counties.

Homeowners first reported the pest after finding large groups of the bugs living on their homes.

“At one home in Hoshton, GA, we found the bugs all over the side of a lady’s house,” Suiter says. “There is a kudzu patch behind her home that provides food, and they were attracted to the light color of the siding. At this time of year, the insects are most active in the afternoon when it gets warm.”

In addition to homes, the bug is attracted to light-colored vehicles.

The week the bug samples arrived at Suiter’s lab, Joe Eger was visiting. The Dow AgroSciences field biologist has 35 years of experience studying the bean plataspid insect and has named new genera and species and identified the insect for museums across the world.

Eger’s identification was confirmed by David Rider at North Dakota State University and Tom Henry at the Smithsonian Institution.

Suiter believes the bug arrived here by accident. “We do have the world’s busiest airport here, but we’ll never know how the bug first got here,” he says. “When it found kudzu here, it found a food source, and it doesn’t have any natural enemies here that we are aware of.”

Suiter says the pest’s populations are, for now, contained to northeast Georgia. It’s an “invasive species feeding on an invasive species.”

Introduced to the U.S. in 1876 from Japan, kudzu was planted in the 1930s to control soil erosion. It now tops the nation’s invasive species list.