African black beetle
The African black beetle is a shiny black, oval beetle about as long as your thumbnail. It is a cousin of the rhinoceros beetles, but it has no horn. It lives in the soil and loves lawns.
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Fun facts
Its scientific name means variable claw ploughman.
It can damage lawns, crops, garden flowers, trees and shrubs.
Its larvae grow better when they eat ryegrass than when they eat clover.
Each of its feelers ends in a little club made of three parts.
Most asked questions about African black beetle
?Is the African black beetle harmful?
Not to people, but it can damage lawns, crops and garden plants.
?What does the African black beetle eat?
Adults eat plant stems at ground level. The larvae eat roots in the soil.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Heteronychus arator
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Scarabaeidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Scarabaeidae
- Lives on
- Africa, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Black lawn beetle
Where the facts come from
- Heteronychus arator (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Paul venter. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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