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Sticker of Pittosporum shield bug
Bug card No. 3359 of 4,939

Pittosporum shield bug

Monteithiella humeralis
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The pittosporum shield bug is a brown bug shaped like a little shield, with pale green legs. It comes from Australia and also lives in New Zealand. It is named after the pittosporum bushes it loves to feed on.

Lives in
Australia and New Zealand, on garden bushes
Length
9 mm (0.35 in)
Top speed
about 0.17 km/h (0.11 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting, and in New Zealand it is not even a garden pest.
What does it eat?
It sucks juice from pittosporum plants, and sometimes from coprosma bushes.
For real!Photo of Pittosporum shield bug
Picture by Steve Kerr. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Pittosporum shield bug about 9 mm long (0.35 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 21 seconds

How big is Pittosporum shield bug compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The mother lays blue eggs under leaves. After 2 or 3 days they turn white, and they hatch after 5 days.

2

The babies are small, round and black with white spots. Later their spots turn orange.

3

It takes about 41 days for an egg to grow into a grown-up bug.

4

It is the only species in its whole genus, so it has no close cousins.

you asked

Most asked questions about Pittosporum shield bug

?What does the pittosporum shield bug eat?

Plant juice, mostly from pittosporum bushes.

?Is the pittosporum shield bug a pest?

No. In New Zealand it is common but not considered a pest.

?How big is the pittosporum shield bug?

A grown-up bug is about 9 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Monteithiella humeralis
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Pentatomidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Pentatomidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Monteithiella humeralis (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 Steve Kerr. CC BY 4.0, 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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