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Sticker of Red-legged buprestis beetle
Bug card No. 3579 of 4,939

Red-legged buprestis beetle

Buprestis rufipes
Name means: “red legs”
Eats: WoodBeetlesForests and woods6 legs

The red-legged buprestis is a shiny metallic green beetle with golden yellow bands on its back. Its legs are reddish, just like its name says. It is a jewel beetle that lives in old trees.

Lives in
The southern and eastern United States, in leafy forests
Length
1.8 to 2.5 cm (0.71 to 0.98 in)
Top speed
about 0.65 km/h (0.4 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
It lives in dead or dying wood of trees like maple, beech, oak and elm.
For real!Photo of Red-legged buprestis beetle
Picture by Lacy L. Hyche, Auburn University, Bugwood.org. CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Red-legged buprestis beetle about 2.5 cm long (0.98 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 4 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 5.5 seconds

How big is Red-legged buprestis beetle compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Even its head and its tummy shine metallic green.

2

Scientists still know very little about how it lives.

3

It has been found on maple, beech, blackgum, oak and elm trees.

you asked

Most asked questions about Red-legged buprestis beetle

?How big is the red-legged buprestis beetle?

About 1.8 to 2.5 centimetres long.

?Where does the red-legged buprestis live?

In leafy forests of the southern and eastern United States, in dead or dying trees.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Buprestis rufipes
Group
Beetles
Family
Buprestidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Buprestidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
Red-legged buprestis

Where the facts come from

  1. Buprestis rufipes (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 Lacy L. Hyche, Auburn University, Bugwood.org. CC BY 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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More from the same group: Beetles

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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