Sweet potato bug
The sweet potato bug is a brown, oval bug with black legs and thick back legs. It is one of the best mums in the bug world. The mother stands guard over her eggs and babies and chases enemies away.
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Fun facts
A mother lays about 83 eggs at a time on the underside of leaves or on stems.
She guards the eggs and even rushes at ants and other enemies that come too close.
Against bigger enemies she sprays a strong-smelling liquid from a special gland.
The eggs hatch after about 15 days, and the mother then feeds her babies food she has already partly digested.
Sometimes two mothers guard one group of babies together.
Most asked questions about Sweet potato bug
?Is the sweet potato bug dangerous?
No. It is harmless to people, but it can make a strong smell when bothered.
?Why is the sweet potato bug a pest?
It sucks juice from sweet potato and bean stems, so the plants wilt and make less fruit.
?How big is the sweet potato bug?
It grows to about 2 centimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Physomerus grossipes
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Coreidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Coreidae
- Lives on
- Asia, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Sweetpotato bug, Large spine-footed bug
Where the facts come from
- Physomerus grossipes (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 EBKauai. 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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