Bean leaf beetle

The bean leaf beetle is a tiny beetle that comes in many colours: grey, yellow, brown, orange or red. Most have a black triangle and six black spots on their back, but its head is always black. It loves soybean plants.

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Fun facts
Some bean leaf beetles have no spots at all.
Its eggs are orange and shaped like tiny spindles. They hatch in about a week.
The larvae are white with a dark brown head and grow up underground.
It can carry a plant illness from one bean plant to another.
It used to live mostly near the Mississippi River but has spread north into Canada.
Most asked questions about Bean leaf beetle
?What does the bean leaf beetle eat?
Leaves and pods of soybeans and other beans. Its larvae eat roots in the soil.
?How big is a bean leaf beetle?
Only about 3.5 to 5.5 millimetres long, smaller than a grain of rice.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Cerotoma trifurcata
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Chrysomelidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Chrysomelidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Bean leaf beetle (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 Jessica Louque, Smithers Viscient. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this 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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