The U.S. Agriculture Department is funding a $5.7 million study of stinkbugs, an insect now associated with crop destruction as well as being a household pest.

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Stinkbugs, originally from China, Japan and Korea, first arrived in the United States in 1996 in Reading, Pa., The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Sunday.

They mostly stayed in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey region until recently. They have been seen now in 33 states.

In 2010, stinkbugs were blamed for destroying $37 million worth of apples in the Mid-Atlantic region, and assessments are under way to determined the amount of damage they caused this year.

Stinkbugs have also attacked soybeans, corn, tomatoes, raspberries and grapes.

"There's a lot not known about [stinkbugs]," said expert John Tooker of Pennsylvania State University, "... because there wasn't a lot of evidence they were doing economic damage beyond a small region of the country."

Now, the federal government is funding the multimillion-dollar study to learn about the insect.

The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Working Group is head by Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist in West Virginia, and George Hamilton, chairman of Rutgers University's department of entomology.

Stinkbugs "are pretty sharp," Tooker said of the insect that has been around for about 37 million years. "They're not just a bumbling mistake of evolution."