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Sticker of Tricolor soldier beetle
Bug card No. 4426 of 4,939

Tricolor soldier beetle

Chauliognathus tricolor
Eats: A bit of everythingBeetlesGardens and meadows6 legs

The tricolor soldier beetle is a flat beetle from Australia wearing three colours. Its head is black, the part behind the head is red-orange, and its wing covers are a shiny olive green. Under the wing covers hides a yellow-orange tummy.

Lives in
Eastern Australia, South Australia and the southwest of Western Australia
Length
0.6 to 1.6 cm (0.24 to 0.63 in)
Top speed
about 0.52 km/h (0.32 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not sting, so you can watch it up close.
What does it eat?
Soldier beetles like this one visit flowers and also eat small insects.
For real!Photo of Tricolor soldier beetle
Picture by patrickkavanagh. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Tricolor soldier beetle about 1.6 cm long (0.63 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 6.9 seconds

How big is Tricolor soldier beetle compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its body can be anything from 6 to 16 millimetres long.

2

Its body is flat, not round like a ladybird.

3

Its wing covers have a metal-like shine.

you asked

Most asked questions about Tricolor soldier beetle

?Where does the tricolor soldier beetle live?

In eastern Australia, South Australia and the southwest corner of Western Australia.

?Why is it called tricolor?

Tricolor means three colours. It has a black head, a red-orange part behind the head and olive-green wing covers.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Chauliognathus tricolor
Group
Beetles
Family
Cantharidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Cantharidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Chauliognathus tricolor (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 patrickkavanagh. 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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