Blue dock beetle
Gastrophysa cyanea
The blue dock beetle is a tiny, shiny leaf beetle, only about half a centimetre long. It is metallic green and sparkles in the sun. It loves the leaves of a plant called curly dock.
Lives in
North America, in fields and gardens
Length
4 to 5 mm (0.16 to 0.2 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
It eats leaves, most often the leaves of curly dock.
How big is it?
How long is it?
💅small enough to sit on your fingernail🍽️could run across a dinner table in 12 seconds
How big is Blue dock beetle compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)
Blue dock beetle about 0.29 km/h (0.18 mph)
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Before laying eggs, the females get a big, round, swollen tummy.
2
The beetles come out in spring.
3
Some beetles kept in museum collections slowly change colour from green to metallic blue.
you asked
Most asked questions about Blue dock beetle
?What does the blue dock beetle eat?
Leaves, mostly from a plant called curly dock.
?How big is the blue dock beetle?
Only 4 to 5 millimetres long, about the size of a grain of rice.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Gastrophysa cyanea
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Chrysomelidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Chrysomelidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Green dock beetle
Where the facts come from
- Gastrophysa cyanea (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 John Flannery from Richmond County, North Carolina, USA. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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