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Sticker of Red-spotted plant bug
Bug card No. 3597 of 4,939

Red-spotted plant bug

Deraeocoris ruber
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The red-spotted plant bug is a wide, shiny bug. It can be light brown, orange or black, but it always has a red spot near the tip of each wing. It is a little hunter that helps gardeners by eating aphids.

Lives in
Almost all of Europe, and also North and South America, on sunny forest edges and in gardens
Length
6 to 8 mm (0.24 to 0.31 in)
Top speed
about 0.16 km/h (0.1 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. It is a helper in the garden.
What does it eat?
It mostly eats aphids and other small insects. Sometimes it even eats other bugs of its own kind.
For real!Photo of Red-spotted plant bug
Picture by Didier Descouens. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Red-spotted plant bug about 8 mm long (0.31 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 22 seconds

How big is Red-spotted plant bug compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its babies are black with a wide pink belly covered in black spines.

2

There is only one family of them each year, and the grown-ups appear from July to September.

3

It often sits on nettles, brambles and thistles, and on fruit trees.

4

It is about 6 to 8 millimetres long.

you asked

Most asked questions about Red-spotted plant bug

?Is the red-spotted plant bug good or bad for gardens?

Good. It eats aphids and other small insects that harm plants.

?Does the red-spotted plant bug bite?

It is harmless to people.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Deraeocoris ruber
Named by
Linnaeus, 1758
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Miridae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Miridae
Lives on
Europe, North America, South America

Where the facts come from

  1. Deraeocoris ruber (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 Didier Descouens. 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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