Mexican bean beetle
The Mexican bean beetle is a ladybird, round and spotted, with eight black spots on each wing case. But unlike most ladybirds, it does not eat bugs. It loves to munch on bean plants instead.
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Fun facts
Its colour can be bright red, rusty brown or golden yellow.
Its babies are yellow, spiky and round like little pills.
One mother beetle lays several hundred yellow eggs in groups under the leaves.
The larvae eat even more of the bean plants than the grown-up beetles do.
Farmers sometimes use a tiny wasp to keep these beetles away from their beans.
Most asked questions about Mexican bean beetle
?Is the Mexican bean beetle a ladybird?
Yes, it is a kind of ladybird, but it eats plants instead of other bugs.
?Is the Mexican bean beetle harmful?
It cannot hurt people, but it can damage bean crops in gardens and fields.
?How big is a Mexican bean beetle?
It is about 6 to 7 millimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Epilachna varivestis
- Named by
- Mulsant
- Group
- Ladybirds
- Family
- Coccinellidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Coccinellidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Mexican bean 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 Stephen Ausmus. 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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