Stenotus binotatus is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of plant bug, originally from Europe, but now also established across North America and New Zealand. It is 6 millimetre long, yellowish, with darker markings on the pronotum and forewings. It feeds on various grass

Grass

Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...

es, and can be a pest of crops such as wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

.

Description

Stenotus binotatus is a fairly large plant bug (6 millimetre long), which is somewhat variable in appearance. The insect's sides are roughly parallel, and the colours depend on both the animal's sex and its age, the markings becoming darker and stronger with increasing age. Males are mostly yellow, with darker markings on the pronotum and forewings, which females are greenish-yellow with paler markings.

Distribution

S. binotatus is native to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 but has been introduced to temperate regions around the world. It is common "throughout the northern and central U.S. and southern Canada", and it has been introduced to New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, where it now found almost throughout the country.

Ecology

Both the nymphs

Nymph (biology)

In biology, a nymph is the immature form of some invertebrates, particularly insects, which undergoes gradual metamorphosis before reaching its adult stage. Unlike a typical larva, a nymph's overall form already resembles that of the adult. In addition, while a nymph moults it never enters a...

 and adults

Imago

In biology, the imago is the last stage of development of an insect, after the last ecdysis of an incomplete metamorphosis, or after emergence from the pupa where the metamorphosis is complete...

 feed on the inflorescence

Inflorescence

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

s of grass

Grass

Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...

es, especially timothy-grass

Timothy-grass

Timothy-grass , is an abundant perennial grass native to most of Europe except for the Mediterranean region. It grows to 50–150 cm tall, with leaves up to 45 cm long and 1 cm broad. The flowerhead is 7–15 cm long and 8–10 mm broad, with densely packed spikelets...

 (Phleum pratense). In New Zealand, S. binotatus has been collected from a large variety of plants, including the grasses brown top

Agrostis capillaris

Agrostis capillaris is a rhizomatous and stoloniferous perennial in the grass family . It is native to Eurasia and has been widely introduced in many parts of the world...

, Yorkshire fog

Yorkshire Fog

Yorkshire Fog or Velvet Grass, Holcus lanatus, is a perennial grass in the Poaceae Family. 'Lanatus' is latin for 'wooly' which describes the plant's hairy texture....

, cocksfoot

Dactylis

Dactylis is a genus of grasses in the subfamily Pooideae, native to Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. They are known in English as cock's-foot or cocksfoot grasses, also sometimes as orchard grasses.-Taxonomy:...

, wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

, barley

Barley

Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...

 and maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

, and many other plants (including rushes

Juncus

Juncus is a genus in the plant family Juncaceae. It consists of some 200 to 300 or more species of grassy plants commonly called rushes...

, Hypericum

Hypericum

Hypericum is a genus of about 400 species of flowering plants in the family Hypericaceae ....

, mānuka

Leptospermum scoparium

Leptospermum scoparium is a shrub or small tree native to New Zealand and southeast Australia. Evidence suggests that L. scoparium originated in Australia before the onset of the Miocene aridity and dispersed relatively recently from Eastern Australia to New Zealand. It is likely that on arrival...

, rātā

Metrosideros

Metrosideros is a genus of approximately 50 trees, shrubs, and vines native to the islands of the Pacific Ocean, from the Philippines to New Zealand and including the Bonin Islands, Polynesia, and Melanesia, with an anomalous outlier in South Africa. Most of the tree forms are small, but some are...

, Nothofagus

Nothofagus

Nothofagus, also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 35 species of trees and shrubs native to the temperate oceanic to tropical Southern Hemisphere in southern South America and Australasia...

, Coriaria

Coriaria

Coriaria is the sole genus in the family Coriariaceae. It includes about 30 species of subshrubs, shrubs and small trees, with a widespread but disjunct distribution across warm temperate regions of the world, occurring as far apart as the Mediterranean region, southern and eastern Asia, New...

, Olearia

Olearia

Olearia is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Asteraceae. There are about 130 different species within the genus found mostly in Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand...

, Muehlenbeckia

Muehlenbeckia

Muehlenbeckia or the Maidenhair genus is native to the southern hemisphere, especially South America, Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand and has been introduced both by birds and cultivation to temperate locales north of the equator. Some are tiny alpine mat-forming plants whereas others...

, Carmichaelia, Larix decidua, Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

, Melicytus ramiflorus

Melicytus ramiflorus

Melicytus ramiflorus is a small tree of the family Violaceae endemic to New Zealand.It grows up to 10 metres high with a trunk up to 60 cm in diameter, it has smooth, whitish bark and brittle twigs...

, Coprosma robusta, pōhutukawa, hemlock

Conium

Conium is a genus of two species of highly poisonous perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the family Apiaceae, native to Europe and the Mediterranean region as Conium maculatum, and to southern Africa as Conium chaerophylloides....

 and nettle

Nettle

Nettles constitute between 24 and 39 species of flowering plants of the genus Urtica in the family Urticaceae, with a cosmopolitan though mainly temperate distribution. They are mostly herbaceous perennial plants, but some are annual and a few are shrubby...

s).

Adults are active from June to September in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, and in December and January in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

Crop damage

Stenotus binotatus produces an enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

 which degrades the gluten

Gluten

Gluten is a protein composite found in foods processed from wheat and related grain species, including barley and rye...

 in the grasses it feeds on. These enzymes are believed to be responsible for the characteristic "sticky dough" produced from wheat which has been attacked by plant bugs such as S. binotatus.

The wheat grain does not show a pale area or puncture mark after attack by S. binotatus, in contrast to other bugs. Instead, the grains appear collapsed. Wheat grains from known bug infestation in New Zealand do not resemble those produced by S. binotatus, and SDS-PAGE

SDS-PAGE

SDS-PAGE, sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, describes a collection of related techniques widely used in biochemistry, forensics, genetics and molecular biology to separate proteins according to their electrophoretic mobility...

 patterns also suggest that S. binotatus was not the cause of infestations.

Taxonomic history

Stenotus binotatus was originally described under the name Lygaeus binotatus by Johan Christian Fabricius

Johan Christian Fabricius

Johan Christian Fabricius was a Danish zoologist, specialising in "Insecta", which at that time included all arthropods: insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others...

 in 1794. The genus Stenotus was erected by Wassily Ewgrafowitsch Jakowlew

Wassily Ewgrafowitsch Jakowlew

Wassily Ewgrafowitsch Jakowlew was a Russian entomologist....

 (also transcribed as "Jakovlev") in 1877, and S. binotatus was designated its type species

Type species

In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...

.

S. binotatus is known by various common names, including two-spotted plant bug, timothy plant bug, and slender crop mirid.

External links

• Stenotus binotatus at Ecology of Commanster