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Sticker of Red jewel bug
Bug card No. 3516 of 4,939

Red jewel bug

Choerocoris paganus
Name means: “its group name means pig-like bug in Greek, because of its round shape”
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasForests and woods6 legs

The red jewel bug is a little Australian bug that shines like a jewel. Its back is mostly crimson red with a big blue-black patch, and its head and legs are dark blue. It is one of the jewel bugs people meet most often in Australia.

Lives in
All over Australia, in woodland and scrub
Length
1 cm (0.39 in)
Top speed
about 0.18 km/h (0.11 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. If you grab it roughly it lets out a smelly liquid, so just look and let it go.
What does it eat?
It sucks sap and eats seeds of hop bush plants. Its babies feast on hop bush seeds that fall to the ground.
For real!Photo of Red jewel bug
Picture by John Jennings from Australia. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Red jewel bug about 1 cm long (0.39 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailas long as 1.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 20 seconds

How big is Red jewel bug compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The mother lays her eggs in neat rows, about 53 in a batch.

2

The eggs start without colour and turn pink and then red within a week.

3

The baby has a hard bump on its head, called an egg buster, to break out of its egg.

4

The young bugs gather together in groups, like a bug kindergarten.

5

It lives for about one year and hides under rocks and branches at night.

you asked

Most asked questions about Red jewel bug

?Is the red jewel bug dangerous?

No. It can let out a smelly liquid if handled roughly, but it does not hurt people.

?What does the red jewel bug eat?

Sap and seeds of hop bush plants, and sometimes other plants.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Choerocoris paganus
Named by
Fabricius, 1775
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Scutelleridae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Scutelleridae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Ground shield bug

Where the facts come from

  1. Choerocoris paganus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by John Jennings from Australia. CC BY 2.0, 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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