Christmas beetle
Christmas beetles are big, chunky beetles from Australia. They are brown or green, and some shine with a golden green glow. They get their name because lots of them show up around Christmas time.
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Fun facts
They are noisy and clumsy fliers that often crash into things.
There are about 35 different kinds of Christmas beetles.
When there are very many of them, they can eat so many leaves that gum trees get sick.
In Australia, Christmas is in summer, which is exactly when these beetles come out.
Most asked questions about Christmas beetle
?Why is it called a Christmas beetle?
Because lots of them appear around Christmas, which is summer time in Australia.
?Are Christmas beetles dangerous?
No. They do not bite or sting people, they are just a bit clumsy when they fly.
?How big is a Christmas beetle?
About 2 to 3 centimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Anoplognathus
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Scarabaeidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Scarabaeidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Christmas 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 Cyron Ray Macey from Brisbane (-27.470963,153.026505), Australia. CC BY 2.0, 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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