I was at a traffic light just about to get on the freeway when a stinkbug landed on my drivers side window. I didn’t pay him any mind since he was about to go flying off as soon as I hit the freeway.
Once I hit 70 mph, that SOB was still hanging on for dear life, antennae flapping in the wind. I asked my wife to clock how long he hung in there. After about five minutes he was gone. But I have to say I am impressed. I can’t imagine he was able to hang in there as long as he did. That had to be the worst five minutes of his life.
They’re puzzling creatures. Strong, and ubiquitous, but dumb and slow and easy to grab with a tissue. We get overrun with them every spring/summer and their only redeeming quality is that they’re so easy to kill.
Our dear idiot puppy got a mouthful of them the other day. I thought she was going to turn herself inside out trying to get rid of the taste. Ah well, she’s always good for a laugh.
I thought you weren’t supposed to kill them like that or they stink the place up. Exterminator told me to hit them with the vacuum. Interestingly, they don’t stick to the wall as well a they do the car window. Or the vacuum packs more force than a moving car.
Maybe, maybe not. Windshield riding could be the insectoid equivalent of bungee jumping. If you could understand bug-speak, you might have heard a high pitched “AWESOME” coming from your little hitch-hiker.
I gently pick them up with a tissue and crumple it up & dump it in the trash. There isn’t a lingering smell, but it leaves my hand smelling… a little strange, not terribly pleasant, but not disgusting. I just wash my hands afterwards. I think if you just squish them on the surface they’re on the smell lingers. My kids gently pick them up with a piece of toilet paper and drop the living bug and paper in the toilet and flush.
There’s been nearly a plague of baby lizards (Anolis carolinensis) in my yard lately. One must have been on my bumper when I started down the road Friday. It crawled onto the windshield when I was going 50 mph and held on, tail just a-flappin in the wind. It took about two miles of 60+ mph before he lost his grip.