American oil beetle
The American oil beetle is a soft, black beetle, sometimes with a blue metal shine. It has long legs, a thin neck and tiny wing cases, so it cannot fly. When it feels scared, it lets out drops of oily liquid from its knees.
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Fun facts
It got the name oil beetle from the oily drops it lets out of its joints.
It comes out at night. In the daytime it hides under leaves, logs and stones.
A mother digs a hole in the soil and lays about 1,000 eggs in it at a time.
Its tiny larvae hitch a ride on bees to reach their nests, where they find food.
Most asked questions about American oil beetle
?Can the American oil beetle fly?
No. It has no back wings and only very short wing cases.
?How big is the American oil beetle?
It is about 7 to 17 millimetres long. Females are usually bigger than males.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Meloe americanus
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Meloidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Meloidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Meloe americanus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Rhododendrites. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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