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Sticker of New Zealand vegetable bug
Bug card No. 2997 of 4,939

New Zealand vegetable bug

Glaucias amyoti
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The New Zealand vegetable bug is a green shield bug shaped like a little oval shield. Its back is covered in tiny pits, and its edges are a paler green. It sucks juice from plants with a mouth like a drinking straw.

Lives in
Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Timor
Length
1.5 to 1.7 cm (0.59 to 0.67 in)
Top speed
about 0.24 km/h (0.15 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not sting. Like other shield bugs, it may make a bad smell if you bother it.
What does it eat?
Both grown-ups and young ones feed on plants, such as Coprosma, Griselinia and Myoporum shrubs.
For real!Photo of New Zealand vegetable bug
Picture by Mark Tutty. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

New Zealand vegetable bug about 1.7 cm long (0.67 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 3 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 15 seconds

How big is New Zealand vegetable bug compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its body is about 15 to 17 millimetres long.

2

When it was first described, its size was given in lines, an old unit of measure: 7 to 8 lines.

3

The tips of its wings are see-through, and its legs and feelers are green.

4

Its mouth part is dull orange with a black tip.

you asked

Most asked questions about New Zealand vegetable bug

?What does the New Zealand vegetable bug eat?

It sucks juice from plants, such as Coprosma, Griselinia and Myoporum.

?Where does the New Zealand vegetable bug live?

In Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Timor.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Glaucias amyoti
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Pentatomidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Pentatomidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania, Asia
Also known as
Australasian green shield bug

Where the facts come from

  1. Glaucias amyoti (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 Mark Tutty. CC BY-SA 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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More from the same group: True bugs and cicadas

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows

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