Asian citrus psyllid
The Asian citrus psyllid is a tiny brown bug that looks as if it is covered in dust. It sucks juice from orange and lemon trees, standing with its head down and its tail up. It can carry a germ that makes citrus trees very sick.
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Fun facts
It spreads citrus greening, a disease that makes orange and lemon trees very sick. That is much worse than the sucking itself.
Unlike aphids, which sit still, psyllids are lively and can jump.
A female can lay up to 800 tiny eggs on the tips of new shoots.
Its eggs change colour from pale to yellow to orange before they hatch.
Ladybirds and some small wasps hunt it and help farmers keep it under control.
Most asked questions about Asian citrus psyllid
?Why is the Asian citrus psyllid a problem?
It carries citrus greening disease, which harms orange, lemon and other citrus trees.
?How big is the Asian citrus psyllid?
It is only about 4 millimetres long.
?Does the Asian citrus psyllid bite people?
No. It only sucks sap from plants.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Diaphorina citri
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Liviidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Liviidae
- Lives on
- Asia, North America, South America
Where the facts come from
- Diaphorina citri (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 David Hall. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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