Cereal leaf beetle
The cereal leaf beetle is a small beetle with dark blue wing cases, a reddish orange middle and red legs. It lives in fields of wheat, oats and barley. Farmers do not like it, because its larvae chew stripes into the leaves of their crops.
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Fun facts
Its larva hides by smearing its own poo all over its body. That makes it look shiny and black and keeps hungry animals away.
The larvae do the most damage. They scrape off the top layer of the leaves and leave thin pale lines.
Its eggs are bright yellow at first and get darker before they hatch.
The grown-up beetles spend the winter tucked away in stubble, tree bark and other sheltered spots.
A warm spring is good for the beetle, but a cold spring is better for the grain plants.
Most asked questions about Cereal leaf beetle
?Is the cereal leaf beetle dangerous?
Not to people. It is a pest because it eats the leaves of grain crops.
?What does the cereal leaf beetle eat?
Leaves of wheat, oats, barley, rye and many wild grasses.
?How big is the cereal leaf beetle?
The grown-ups are only about 5 millimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Oulema melanopus
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Chrysomelidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Chrysomelidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, North America
Where the facts come from
- Cereal leaf beetle (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 Matankic. 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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