Good bug or bad?

Question

Is this a friendly bug or bad?

Answer 1

Image search suggests that it's probably some sort of herbivorous stinkbug. There are many similar species of green stinkbugs and I don't feel confident about which one it might be. There are also brown stinkbugs, one type of which is an invasive of considerable impact in the USA, but I don't know where you are as you didn't say, and yours is green, anyway.

From a gardener's point of view plant-eating bugs are generally considered "bad" (but they'd be "good" if we could train them to eat only plants we think of as "weeds" or less polite terms...)

Whether they are actually a problem in any given case depends on how many there are and what they are eating. A few isolated bugs eating plants are generally better picked off individually or left alone, rather than trying to kill them wholesale which will affect many other bugs, from harmless to helpful.

Drowning them in soapy water will avoid releasing the stink as crushing them will. Insecticidal soap as a spray may be suitable for worse infestations, used in accordance with labelling to minimize harm to non-target species. Parasitic wasps are another potential control mechanism with less impact to non-target species.