Answer: What are these three things?

This was supposed to be simple... 

... but as we know, even simple Research Questions can sometimes be more complicated than you'd think.  

Here's what I did in each case... 

1.  I've got a BIG (4 meters tall!) trellis of green beans growing in my garden.  On Monday, I found this growing on stalks.  Do I need to worry about them?  Will they eat up all my beans?  What should I do?  

So... what IS this creature? 

Here it is on my thumb for scale: 

And a fairly in-focus closeup.  The colors are even more striking in real life! 

I first did what many of you did... Search-by-Image.  Here's what I found.  Looks plausible, yes? 

But as I worked my way through the images, there are lots of SIMILAR bugs, but nothing quite right.  The dots aren't in the right place, and none of them had the orange-colored epaulettes at the shoulder.  

So I modified the query and tried again--but no dice.  

I thought that there MUST be other images of this fairly dramatic bug on the web, so I changed my search tactic and went to Yandex's search-by-image tool. Lo and behold, this is what I found: 

That's impressively good.  My uploaded image matches pictures 1, 2, and 4 really well. The first two organic results (from iNaturalist) look like the perfect match.  

Even better is the next result (just below the screencap) from Wikipedia identifying this bug as a Nezara viridula.  Specifically, this is the third instar nymph of this bug, known colloquially as a southern green stink bug (in the USA), southern green shield bug (UK) or green vegetable bug (Australia and New Zealand).  It's a plant-feeding stink bug that goes through a number of developmental stages (known as instars).  This developmental sequence from the Nezara viridula article shows the various stages really well.  Take note of the 3rd instar--that's our bug.  Same shape, same yellow dots, same orange dots on the shoulders.  (Click on the image to see it full-size.)  And that explains why I don't see them any more--they've all moved on to the 4th instar and are full adults (by now).  

For those of you who thought it was a kind of ladybug (aka a "ladybird beetle"), you assumed too much.  If you search for a [ ladybug with yellow dots ] you find something that looks a lot like this, but you've led the witness (i.e., the search engine).  Careful! 

2.  This is a diagram of an important part of a 3-hole punch that's currently broken.  It's an aluminum metal pin with a collar-like-thing around the middle.  That's the part that is missing, so the pin keeps slipping out onto the floor when I use it.  I want to buy a new one… but... What do I call this?  How can I find this online?

I tried to get a good picture of this part, but could never get a good enough photo to use.  Here's my sketch.  

 The pin is about 1 inch long (2.5 cm) and the "collar" clearly snaps into a groove around the center.  (It's also a bit more circular than my sketch, but you get the idea.)  

What IS this gizmo?  How do you search for something like this? 

My first inclination was to search for: 

     [ pin and clip ] 

but that ended up showing my lots of  pins that had  a hole in them and a cotter pin.  That's close, but not quite right.  This is what I saw: 

And that's not bad!  In the first row, 4th from the left, it's described as a "pin and E-clip."  Which is a good answer.  But when I looked at the site, it's clear that this is because the clip is shaped like an E.  You can't see it in my drawing, but it's actually shaped more like a "C."  

So... 

I modified my query to be:  

   

     [ pin c clip ] 

and got these results... 

Look at the first result in the second row:  That's called a clevis Pin/C clip.  Useful!  This is close, but I'm looking for exactly what I drew.  

Finally, I decided to be specific, adding in terms that described the exactly what was special about my goals... and did a search for  [ clevis pin groove clip ]  and found this! 

See that sketch in the upper left?  THAT's what I was trying to draw!  

And now I know what it is.  

3.  I just got  a new piano.  Hurrah! I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.  But the place where it will sit in the house is fairly sunny.  What should I use to cover it to protect from sun damage? What material should it be made of?  (Keep in mind that this instrument has a new finish.) 

After futzing around for a while reading various help forums and Q/A sites, I FINALLY realized that people must sell piano covers... I can't be the only person with this goal! 

     [ piano covers for sale ] 

and found a number of sites that sell piano covers (including ones that are designed and cut for exactly THIS piano, a Kimball baby grand).  Reading through the descriptions I found they're made of either Mackintosh fabric (a kind of rubberized fabric that's made of multiple layers--read the fascinating backstory of how this fabric was invented) OR a kind of multi-layer fabric with a vinyl layer.   All of the covers come in either flat (i.e., one layer) or quilted (multiple layers of fabric, stitched in a protective quilted style).  

Search Lessons 

1.  Sometimes, just sometimes, using another search engine actually improves your search!  In this case, Yandex' search-by-image gave us exactly the right result.  Big lesson here--if one doesn't work, try another one (Bing, Baidu, and Yandex all have good search-by-image functions).  

2. Often a near-miss can give you clues about how to improve your search.  In this case, I learned the word "clevis" from a SERP that wasn't great.  But when I search for that term, all my results were excellent.  Learn from your near-misses!  

3. Consider the value of searching for a product that covers what you're seeking.  If you're searching for something that someone might sell (like a piano cover), you can search for it and learn a lot by reading the descriptions.  


Search on!