Willow clytra
The willow clytra is a shiny red-orange beetle with four black spots, two big ones in the middle and two small ones on the shoulders. It looks a bit like a ladybird, but it is longer. Its babies grow up inside ant nests.
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Fun facts
The mother wraps each egg in a little ball of her own poo and drops it near an ant hill.
The ants carry the eggs into their nest without knowing what they are.
Inside the ant nest, the larva lives in a tube that protects it from the ants.
The larvae eat the ants' leftovers, and sometimes their eggs and babies too.
Growing up inside the ant nest takes about two years.
Most asked questions about Willow clytra
?Is the willow clytra a ladybird?
No. It looks similar, but it is a leaf beetle with a longer body.
?Why is it called the ant bag beetle?
Its babies grow up inside ant nests, hidden in a little protective tube.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Clytra laeviuscula
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Chrysomelidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Chrysomelidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- Ant bag beetle
Where the facts come from
- Clytra laeviuscula (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 Hectonichus. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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