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Sticker of Indian milkweed bug
Bug card No. 2341 of 4,939

Indian milkweed bug

Spilostethus pandurus
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The Indian milkweed bug is a red and black seed bug with two wavy black stripes behind its head. It has a little white spot near the end of its wings. Its babies are bright red with black marks.

Lives in
Southern Europe, Africa and southern Asia to India and China
Length
1.3 to 1.5 cm (0.51 to 0.59 in)
Top speed
about 0.22 km/h (0.14 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. It can make a bad tasting liquid to keep predators away.
What does it eat?
It sucks juice from the flowers and seeds of many plants, especially milkweeds and oleander.
For real!Photo of Indian milkweed bug
Picture by Hectonichus. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Indian milkweed bug 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 16 seconds

How big is Indian milkweed bug compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It can squirt out a nasty substance that predators do not like.

2

In Europe it often sits on poisonous plants such as oleander and jimsonweed.

3

It can damage sesame, sorghum, peanut and sunflower crops.

you asked

Most asked questions about Indian milkweed bug

?Is the Indian milkweed bug harmful?

Not to people, but it can damage some crops.

?How big is the Indian milkweed bug?

About 13 to 15 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Spilostethus pandurus
Named by
Scopoli, 1763
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Lygaeidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Lygaeidae
Lives on
Europe, Africa, Asia

Where the facts come from

  1. Spilostethus pandurus (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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