Boxelder Invasion
This summer, Canada was invaded. You might have just caught a tiny flash of red at first, but once you started noticing them you realized they were everywhere.
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TRANSCRIPT
This summer, Canada was invaded.
It was subtle - but you might catch strange flashes of red on the ground. And once you started looking, all of a sudden they were everywhere: red boxelder bugs.
They’re named for the boxelder maple, or Alberta maple, because they love eating its developing seeds and leaves. And they also love hot, dry summers, which prompt a big boxelder bug baby boom. This happened in 2016, and 2022 has been another banner year for them.
You’ll be glad to know they’re totally harmless. But why are they suddenly congregating in these big patches? And isn’t that just setting them up as a buffet for passing birds?
There’s a clue to the second question in their colour. Bright red can be a clear signal: ‘eat me and we’re both gonna have a bad day’. Now this gets a little weird: they belong to the family ‘rhopalidae’ which means ‘scentless plant bugs’ - and if you made one guess about boxelder bugs based on that name… you’d be wrong, because they do have a scent, a nasty compound that makes them unpleasant to eat, and lets them have their big get-togethers without becoming lunch.
As for why they do it? Well, in the adorable words of one entomologist, they’re like cats looking for a sunbeam.
As the weather starts to turn, they start looking for warmth, and spots to overwinter. Unfortunately, that often means inside the walls of houses.
Now, they don’t do any structural damage, and would be content to just wait out the winter in diapause - the insect equivalent of hibernation. But when we switch on our heating systems, they get fooled into thinking spring has sprung and they tend to spring with it - sometimes into your living room. At which point most people stop caring how ‘benign’ they are.
So what do you do if this happens to you? The best measures are preventative - just keep your home sealed up tight. But worst case scenario, experts recommend using a shop vac on them - which does sound a little cruel but is probably also a lot of fun.