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Sticker of Downy leather-winged beetle
Bug card No. 1413 of 4,939

Downy leather-winged beetle

Podabrus pruinosus

The downy leather-winged beetle is an orange beetle with soft, blackish brown wing covers. Its wing covers are covered in fine hair, like soft fuzz. It is a helpful garden bug because it eats aphids.

Lives in
North America, in gardens, meadows and woods
Length
0.9 to 1.5 cm (0.35 to 0.59 in)
Top speed
about 0.5 km/h (0.31 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The grown-ups eat aphids, the tiny bugs that suck sap from plants.
For real!Photo of Downy leather-winged beetle
Picture by Judy Gallagher. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Downy leather-winged beetle about 1.5 cm long (0.59 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 2.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 7.2 seconds

How big is Downy leather-winged beetle compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

If something disturbs it, it simply drops to the ground.

2

Its babies are pink and live in the soil.

3

The babies grow to 15 to 20 millimetres, even longer than the grown-up beetles.

4

You can see it most in spring and summer.

you asked

Most asked questions about Downy leather-winged beetle

?What does the downy leather-winged beetle eat?

It eats aphids, so gardeners are happy to have it around.

?How big is the downy leather-winged beetle?

It is about 9 to 15 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Podabrus pruinosus
Group
Beetles
Family
Cantharidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Cantharidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Podabrus pruinosus (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 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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More from the same group: Beetles

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows

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