{"id":3832,"date":"2023-12-16T15:10:55","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T15:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/?p=3832"},"modified":"2026-08-14T17:06:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T17:06:27","slug":"2023-12-tropical-shield-bug-in-tena-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/posts\/2023-12-tropical-shield-bug-in-tena-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Cilantro and sulfur: Meeting the shield bug Pygoda polita"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Pygoda polita <\/em>is a South American species of shield bug (<em>Pentatomidae<\/em>) with a rich taxonomic history. Originally described as <em>Pentatoma polita<\/em> in 1825 by entomologists Am\u00e9d\u00e9e Lepeletier and Jean Guillaume Audinet-Serville, it underwent several reclassifications before being assigned to the genus <em>Pygoda<\/em>. It is distinguished from related <em>Edessa<\/em> bugs by its short, acute pronotal angles and specialized genital anatomy. Like many stink bugs, it possesses a broad, shield-like body, a prominent triangular scutellum, and piercing-sucking mouthparts. When threatened, metathoracic glands on its underside deploy a sharp, oily chemical cocktail\u2014a pungent odor often described as a mix of intense cilantro, burning sulfur, and rotting vegetation. I spotted this impressive bug in a lovely park in Tena, Ecuador. It was playing hide-and-seek deep between the leaves, which unfortunately made getting a tack-sharp photo quite a challenge!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pygoda polita is a South American species of shield bug (Pentatomidae) with a rich taxonomic history. Originally described as Pentatoma [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"countries":[74,73],"order-category":[60,54,42],"class_list":["post-3832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phytophages-herbivores","countries-ecuador","countries-south-america","order-category-insects","order-category-insects-true-bugs-shield-bugs","order-category-insects-true-bugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3832"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8586,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832\/revisions\/8586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3832"},{"taxonomy":"countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/countries?post=3832"},{"taxonomy":"order-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/order-category?post=3832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}