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Feb 15, 2015 4:15 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Reid
North Branch, MN (Zone 4b)
Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Garden Ideas: Master Level
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I found this in a bag of organic salad bag. What is it?
Avatar for cleoxpatria
Feb 25, 2015 2:36 AM CST

Looks like a stinkbug, given its shield-shaped thorax......was it dead or alive when you found it?????
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Feb 25, 2015 9:20 AM CST
Name: Janet Super Sleuth
Near Lincoln UK
Bee Lover Plant Identifier Organic Gardener Dragonflies I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Charter ATP Member
Cat Lover Garden Photography Butterflies Birds Spiders!
That's the problem with ready mixed bags of salad! I sympathise with the bug. Rolling on the floor laughing I hope you threw the salad away, they spray them with a weak insecticide to kill bugs but any which get stuck to the salad can cause severe stomach upsets due to streptococcal growths.

https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

It is a 'shieldbug' in the family Pentatomidae.

The colour (which changes to brown over winter) along with the pale edge to the pronotum, general shape, and yellow tip to the scutellum suggest Chlorochroa ligata.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

http://horticulture.oregonstat...

http://www.britishbugs.org.uk/...

The salad might have been grown in nearby states.

http://www.discoverlife.org/20...

Chlorochroa granulosa is similar .. the species epithet suggests a 'grainy' effect but it also has three white spots along the edge of the pronotum which your bug doesn't have.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...
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Feb 25, 2015 1:47 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Reid
North Branch, MN (Zone 4b)
Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Garden Ideas: Master Level
We had eaten most of the huge bag of salad before we found it. This was in the bag after it was going bad. That may explain some mild stomach issues!

Thanks, a stink bug came to mind when I saw it.
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Feb 25, 2015 5:29 PM CST
Name: Janet Super Sleuth
Near Lincoln UK
Bee Lover Plant Identifier Organic Gardener Dragonflies I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Charter ATP Member
Cat Lover Garden Photography Butterflies Birds Spiders!
I'm glad you survived Reid, I know someone who became very ill from eating bagged salad!

Think of not only the larger bugs, which in theory shouldn't have made it's way into the salad, but those tiny bugs barely visible to the human eye. If any of those haven't been washed off the salads, and that is very possible given the nature of salads, then you could easily be eating something nasty.
Avatar for cleoxpatria
Feb 28, 2015 3:26 PM CST

JRsbugs......you're good Hurray! ---I miss having access to an insect dichotomy key chart and microscope!!! The only time I have found a critter in my salad was at a Beef and Ale years ago and luckily didn't ail from the experience.....it was a quite obese, healthy weevil crawling over the salad that must have been hiding in the lettuce.....I didn't make an issue of it, but the restaurant insisted on comping my meal......
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Feb 28, 2015 3:39 PM CST
Name: Janet Super Sleuth
Near Lincoln UK
Bee Lover Plant Identifier Organic Gardener Dragonflies I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Charter ATP Member
Cat Lover Garden Photography Butterflies Birds Spiders!
Thank You! *Blush*

My camera is my microscope, and good websites where professionals hang out or have set up have helped in the past but research, research and more research is the trick. Hilarious!

As the weevil was alive, it might have dropped onto your lettuce from inside the building, these things can fly and people can bring them inside on their clothing. I bet it made you feel sick by the thought of it!
Avatar for cleoxpatria
Mar 1, 2015 10:14 PM CST

Who knows where my critter came from.....he was FAT and very much ALIVE!!! He really didn't frighten me as much as he did the staff......I thought the whole thing was hilarious........I know.......weird! : Sticking tongue out
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