False Potato Beetle

 


Don't be fooled. This beetle isn't a Colorado Potato beetle. It's merely its less voracious cousin, Leptinotarsa juncta (the False Potato Beetle). It's a member of Chrysomelidae, the leaf beetles, and is related to the Colorado Potato Beetle. This beetle feeds on potato too (to a lesser extent), but also feeds on horsenettle, Physalis spp., and bittersweet. Actually, they don't even grow when feeding on potato. I have horsenettle in my yard, and lots of it. So that explains where this beetle came from (one of my family members caught it in the yard when I wasn't present). When in the jar I kept him in (before collecting him), he liked playing dead whenever I shook it in the slightest (I'll add some of those photos, too). 

More photos:



    

It's a remarkable species. 

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