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Sticker of Sweetpotato leaf beetle
Bug card No. 4258 of 4,939

Sweetpotato leaf beetle

Aspidomorpha miliaris
Eats: PlantsBeetlesGardens and meadows6 legs

The sweetpotato leaf beetle is a tortoise beetle about one and a half centimetres long. Its back is yellowish brown, sprinkled with black spots. Some beetles have lots of spots and others almost none.

Lives in
India and Southeast Asia, on farms and in gardens
Length
1.5 cm (0.59 in)
Top speed
about 0.5 km/h (0.31 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. Farmers do not like it, because it eats their crops.
What does it eat?
It and its larvae eat the leaves of sweet potatoes and morning glories.
For real!Photo of Sweetpotato leaf beetle
Picture by Udo Schmidt. CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Sweetpotato leaf beetle about 1.5 cm long (0.59 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 2.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 7.2 seconds

How big is Sweetpotato leaf beetle compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

No two beetles look quite the same, because the number and pattern of spots changes a lot.

2

Its larvae live together in groups and can harm sweet potato crops.

3

Its genus name is often spelled wrong. The correct spelling is Aspidimorpha.

you asked

Most asked questions about Sweetpotato leaf beetle

?What does the sweetpotato leaf beetle eat?

The leaves of sweet potatoes and morning glories.

?How big is the sweetpotato leaf beetle?

About 1.5 centimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Aspidomorpha miliaris
Group
Beetles
Family
Chrysomelidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Chrysomelidae
Lives on
Asia

Where the facts come from

  1. Aspidimorpha miliaris (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 Udo Schmidt. CC BY-SA 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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