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Sticker of Cruciferous bug
Bug card No. 1246 of 4,939

Cruciferous bug

Eurydema ventralis
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The cruciferous bug is a small, flat shield bug. It is red or yellow with black patterns, like a tiny painted shield. It loves cabbage plants very much.

Lives in
Most of Europe, in gardens and fields with cabbage
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 to people. Gardeners do not like it because it can harm their cabbages.
What does it eat?
It sucks juice from cabbages and other plants of the cabbage family, and sometimes from potatoes and grain.
For real!Photo of Cruciferous bug
Picture by Hectonichus. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Cruciferous 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 Cruciferous bug compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

When a grown-up bug first comes out of its old skin, it is white with black spots. Then it slowly turns yellow, orange and finally red.

2

The grown-ups sleep through the winter and come back to the cabbages in spring.

3

It can have two families of babies in one year, one in spring and one in summer.

you asked

Most asked questions about Cruciferous bug

?Is the cruciferous bug harmful?

Not to people. It only harms cabbage plants by sucking their juice.

?How big is the cruciferous bug?

It is about 1 cm long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Eurydema ventralis
Named by
Kolenati, 1846
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Pentatomidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Pentatomidae
Lives on
Europe

Where the facts come from

  1. Eurydema ventralis (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 Hectonichus. CC BY-SA 3.0, 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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