Dead-nettle leaf beetle
Fasta fastuosa
The dead-nettle leaf beetle is a small, round beetle that shines like gold. Along its wing cases run stripes of green or violet blue. Sometimes one is all green or all black.
Lives in
Europe to Central Asia, and brought to North America
Length
5.1 to 6.9 mm (0.2 to 0.27 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Both the beetles and their larvae eat the leaves of dead-nettles, hemp-nettles and stinging nettles.
How big is it?
How long is it?
💅small enough to sit on your fingernail🍽️could run across a dinner table in 11 seconds
How big is Dead-nettle leaf 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)
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Dead-nettle leaf beetle about 0.34 km/h (0.21 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It is the only species in its genus, so it has no close brothers or sisters.
2
Its larvae sometimes hide inside the little cups that hold the flowers and seeds.
3
It happily munches stinging nettles without getting stung.
you asked
Most asked questions about Dead-nettle leaf beetle
?What does the dead-nettle leaf beetle eat?
It eats the leaves of dead-nettles, hemp-nettles and stinging nettles.
?How big is the dead-nettle leaf beetle?
It is about 5 to 7 millimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Fasta fastuosa
- Named by
- Scopoli, 1763
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Chrysomelidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Chrysomelidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, North America
Where the facts come from
- Fasta (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 Johannes Robalotoff. CC BY-SA 4.0, 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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