The Colorado Potato Beetle (aka the Potato bug) is among the 10 insects that everyone should know. Gardeners from California to Florida to Nova Scotia to British Columbia certainly know it. CPB adults and larvae feed on the leaves of plants in the Potato family, which includes potatoes as well as tomatoes, nightshade, peppers, eggplant and other secondary targets.
Adult Red Milkweed Beetles eat milkweed leaves, buds, and flowers and they can get away with being red and black in a green world because milkweeds are toxic, and so, therefore, are RMBs, and red and black are aposematic (warning) colors. Apparently, there are some “primitive” species of Tetraopes that are not “locked into” toxic host plants and that have less a conspicuous coloration.
In lieu of the usual bug biography, the BugLady presents The Twelve Bugs of Christmas—a tribute to a dozen insects (a Baker’s Dozen, really) that were photographed this year but not featured in a BOTW. Let the singing commence.
Members of the leaf beetle family Chrysomelidae (more than 1,700 species north of Mexico) are often named after the plants they specialize on. The Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetles prefer Swamp milkweed, but they’re found on other milkweeds as well. Multiple eggs are laid under milkweed leaves; multiple larvae hatch out and feed together on milkweed leaves for a while before going their separate ways. Adults also feed on milkweed, enjoying both the leaves and the flowers.
Blister Beetles belong in the beetle family Meloidae, a family that contains about 400 species in North America and 3,000 species worldwide. Here in the Eastern side of the country, these mostly diurnal, medium-sized, wide-headed, long-legged, cylindrical beetles are often striped, spotted or drab in color. Their soft elytra (wing covers) are curved around the length of the abdomen but may not extend to its tip.
Long-horned Beetles are a bunch of often-brightly-colored beetles of all sizes that may sport astonishingly-long antennae (horns). There are more than 10,000 (maybe more than 20,000) species of long-horned beetles worldwide, and about 1,000 of those occur in North America. The larvae of some species get into mischief by boring in trees, whether living or lumber.
Both the head and thorax of the Fire-Colored Beetles are narrower than the elytra, and there’s a neck-like constriction behind the head. Most species of FcBs have antennae that are mildly pectinate (comb-like), but in some species the antennae have evolved spectacularly into dramatic, even antler-like fringes.
The Green June Beetle range extends from New York (and sometimes even farther north) west to Kansas, just nicking the edge of Wisconsin, and then it plunges south through the Gulf Coast. Look for it at the intersection of agriculture, grass-scapes and fruit trees.
Grapevine Beetles are nocturnal, oval, chunky, possessed of sturdy front legs that are widened and toothed for digging, and plates at the ends of their antennae. The color of GBs varies from pale broom-straw yellow to rich saffron. There’s a spot on each side of the thorax, and three on the side of each elytron. Look for GBs east of the Great Plains, in woodlands, thickets, vineyards and gardens—places where rotting wood/stumps are found near grape vines.
The Wedge-shaped Beetle (Macrosiagon limbata) doesn’t seem to have a common name. There are 11 species of Macrosiagon north of the Rio Grande. The extremely ephemeral adult females hang out on flowers, where they deposit their eggs and where they may do a little nectar feeding. Like tachinid flies, WSBs lay their eggs on flowers in hopes that their newly-hatched young will intersect with another insect and hop on board.