Spined assassin bug
Sinea diadema
Name means: “thorn bush and crown”
The spined assassin bug is a spiky little hunter. It hides on flowers and waits for other insects to visit. Then it grabs them with its front legs.
Lives in
North America, especially the Midwest, in fields, grasslands and gardens
Can it hurt you?
Can bite
It can give a painful bite if you pick it up, but it is not dangerous. Just watch it.
What does it eat?
It eats small bugs and beetles that it catches on flowers.
How fast is it?
A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)
Spined assassin bug about 0.2 km/h (0.12 mph)
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It often hunts on goldenrod flowers.
2
Sometimes it creeps up on its prey very slowly before it grabs it.
3
A female can lay up to 412 eggs, in neat little clusters.
4
It spends the winter as an egg, and there are two families of young each year.
you asked
Most asked questions about Spined assassin bug
?Does the spined assassin bug bite?
It can bite if you grab it, and that hurts, but it is not dangerous.
?What does the spined assassin bug eat?
Small bugs and beetles that it catches on flowers.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Sinea diadema
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Reduviidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Reduviidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Sinea diadema (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 Judy Gallagher. CC BY 2.0, 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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