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Sticker of Lime leaf aphid
Bug card No. 2623 of 4,939

Lime leaf aphid

Eucallipterus tiliae
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The lime leaf aphid is a tiny bug that lives on the leaves of lime trees, also called linden trees. You can spot it by the black stripe along its body and the dark smoky edge on its wings. It lives in big crowds, and its feelers are longer than its whole body.

Lives in
First from Europe and Asia, now all over the world wherever lime trees grow
Top speed
about 0.01 km/h (0.01 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. It cannot bite or sting, but it can make cars parked under lime trees sticky.
What does it eat?
It sucks the sweet sap from the leaves of lime trees.
For real!Photo of Lime leaf aphid
Picture by John Curtis (entomologist) (1791-1862). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It drips a sticky sweet liquid called honeydew, so the ground and cars under lime trees on the street get sticky.

2

A black mould likes to grow on that honeydew on the leaves.

3

The babies have short mouth needles, so they can only drink from the thin veins of a leaf. The grown-ups can reach the thick ones.

4

There get to be more and more of them all summer long.

5

Ladybirds and many kinds of tiny wasps hunt them.

you asked

Most asked questions about Lime leaf aphid

?Why is the ground sticky under lime trees?

Lime leaf aphids drip sweet honeydew from the leaves above, which makes everything below sticky.

?Are lime leaf aphids harmful?

Not to people. They cannot bite or sting, they just make a sticky mess.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Eucallipterus tiliae
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Aphididae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Aphididae
Lives on
Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Linden aphid, Lime-tree aphid

Where the facts come from

  1. Eucallipterus tiliae (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 John Curtis (entomologist) (1791-1862). Public domain, 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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