Southern Green Stink Bug – The Tomato-Terrorising Tiny Green Menace

Nezara viridula - The Tiny Green Mafia

Found this Nezara viridula nymph helping itself to my homegrown tomatoes in my terrace garden here in Italy.

They’re an invasive pest in this region, originally from Africa, and will happily chew through beans, peppers, cucumbers - basically anything I plant that I actually want to eat.

This one’s in its “teenage” stage, still brightly coloured before it turns green as an adult. They look beautiful up close, but when they turn my garden into a buffet, I have no mercy.

Our local Agricultural Institute, L’Istituto Agrario di San Michele all’Adige, has basically issued a botanical fatwa against these green menaces. They’ve literally begged gardeners to kill stink bugs on sight. whatever type, no questions asked.

I took this close up photo and wrote a tongue-in-cheek blog post about the whole “Tiny Green Mafia” situation. If you fancy a read, it’s here: https://catsandbirdsandstuff.com/how-i-became-a-garden-vigilante-my-war-against-the-tiny-green-mafia