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Sticker of Pied shield bug
Bug card No. 3324 of 4,939

Pied shield bug

Tritomegas bicolor
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The pied shield bug is a small black and white bug shaped like a little shield. It belongs to the burrowing bugs and spends most of its time on the ground. You can also find it on dead nettles.

Lives in
Europe, North Africa and Central Asia
Length
5.5 to 7 mm (0.22 to 0.28 in)
Top speed
about 0.15 km/h (0.09 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot sting.
What does it eat?
It feeds on plants, mostly dead nettles and black horehound.
For real!Photo of Pied shield bug
Picture by James K. Lindsey. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Pied shield bug about 7 mm long (0.28 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 fingernailcould run across a dinner table in 24 seconds

How big is Pied shield bug compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its black and white pattern makes it easy to recognise.

2

It lives mostly on the ground, close to its food plants.

3

In Britain it gets rarer the further north you go, and it is not found in Scotland or Ireland.

you asked

Most asked questions about Pied shield bug

?What does the pied shield bug eat?

Plants, mostly dead nettles and black horehound.

?How big is the pied shield bug?

Small, about 5.5 to 7 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Tritomegas bicolor
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Cydnidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Cydnidae
Lives on
Europe, Africa, Asia

Where the facts come from

  1. Tritomegas bicolor (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 James K. Lindsey. 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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