There are 2 shield bugs that I let stay at my home (winter) and I've been observing some interesting behaviors. I arranged a little (open) place for them with some celery stalks and fruit and they always stay there or at a close radius from it, so I can monitor them easily.
So yesterday I noticed that one was struggling with something that got attached to its leg, and I decided to pick it up to remove it. I moved it about 2 meters away from "home" to a nearby lamp, to see better, and started the "operation". The bug didn't like that at all and was trying to constantly move away... and at some point it emitted, to my surprise, a few short high pitched sounds.
I was able to finish almost immediately after that and put the bug back at "home", and noticed that the other bug had moved about 6cm. inwards (to the less visible parts, i.e. it was hiding) and had left a little droplet of fluid behind it, about 3mm in volume, that looks like water.
The droplets are not new to me, I saw that other bug doing that too in another situation a while ago: it was standing on a piece of fruit which I lifted and moved to the sunlight (holding it in the air and relatively near to me)..., because it was shining that day and was curious about the reaction (since they like warmth). I think it's a stress reaction, as it looked stressed and trying to walk away. That time the volume also was notably higher than 3mm.
(Curiously, though, those "water" droplets don't have any smell and I generally have not been able to detect any from them ever. These are called "stink bugs" (brown marmored specifically) and are supposed to release a bad smell when stressed. I also don't know in which form exactly the smell is supposed to be released, is this transparent fluid related?)
Anyway... what I found interesting here is that I think that the sound emitted by the bug I picked up might have been some sort of warning, which moved the other bug to hide, after possibly releasing the "bad smell" to fend off the attacker. Does something like that make sense? I've researched extensively about these bugs in the internet but unfortunately most of the information is superficial, inaccurate and focused mostly on getting rid of them.
Edit: noting that I picked the bug up at some distance from the other, possibly outside of its vision range, and I'm often very close to their "home" looking at them or even moving things close to them (e.g. changing the celery stalks), and never witness these reactions, so me coming close or picking up the bug seems unlikely to be the "droplet release" trigger.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/Entomology/comments/mbb3dc/understanding_some_shield_bug_behaviors/
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