False potato beetle
The false potato beetle is a round, striped little beetle that looks almost exactly like the famous Colorado potato beetle. It has black and white stripes on its back, with one light brown stripe in the middle of each wing case. That brown stripe is how you can tell it apart.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its babies are humpbacked larvae with one row of dark spots on each side.
In one summer there can be up to three new generations of these beetles.
The grown-ups spend the winter in the soil and come out in late spring or early summer.
Even though it looks so much like the Colorado potato beetle, the two kinds cannot have babies together.
Most asked questions about False potato beetle
?How do you tell a false potato beetle from a Colorado potato beetle?
Look at the middle of each wing case. The false potato beetle has a light brown stripe there instead of a white one.
?Does the false potato beetle eat potatoes?
Not really. It lives on wild weeds and cannot grow on potato plants.
?Is the false potato beetle a pest?
No, only its cousin the Colorado potato beetle is a serious pest.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Leptinotarsa juncta
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Chrysomelidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Chrysomelidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- False potato 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.
- Picture by The original uploader was Mattrupp at English Wikipedia .. CC BY 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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