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Sticker of Asparagus beetle
Bug card No. 0193 of 4,939

Asparagus beetle

Crioceris asparagi
Eats: PlantsBeetlesGardens and meadows6 legs

The asparagus beetle is a small, bright beetle with shiny blue-black colour, cream or yellow spots and a red border on its wing cases. It is very picky about food: it only eats asparagus. Gardeners who grow asparagus know it well.

Lives in
Europe and North America, wherever asparagus is grown
Length
6 to 9.5 mm (0.24 to 0.37 in)
Top speed
about 0.4 km/h (0.25 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. It only harms asparagus plants.
What does it eat?
It eats only asparagus. Both the beetles and their grey grubs strip the thin leaves and chew the spears.
For real!Photo of Asparagus beetle
Picture by No machine-readable author provided. User:Keith Edkins, Cambridge, UK assumed (based on copyright claims).. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Asparagus beetle about 9.5 mm long (0.37 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 9 seconds

How big is Asparagus beetle compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its babies are fat grey grubs with dark heads.

2

After a few weeks of eating, the grubs drop to the ground to turn into beetles.

3

There can be two or three families of beetles in one year.

4

In winter the grown-ups sleep underground or in fallen leaves.

5

A tiny wasp that lays its eggs in the grubs helps farmers keep these beetles in check.

you asked

Most asked questions about Asparagus beetle

?What does the asparagus beetle eat?

Only asparagus, the leaves and the spears.

?How big is the asparagus beetle?

About 6 to 9.5 millimetres long.

?Is the asparagus beetle dangerous?

No. It does not bite or sting people.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Crioceris asparagi
Group
Beetles
Family
Chrysomelidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Chrysomelidae
Lives on
Europe, North America
Also known as
Common asparagus beetle

Where the facts come from

  1. Common asparagus beetle (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 No machine-readable author provided. User:Keith Edkins, Cambridge, UK assumed (based on copyright claims).. 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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