Bug Wiki
Sticker of Grapevine beetle
Bug card No. 0646 of 1,500

Grapevine beetle

Pelidnota punctata
Eats: PlantsBeetlesGardens and meadows6 legs

The grapevine beetle is a chunky, shiny beetle the colour of butterscotch, with four black dots on each side. It is about as long as a big grape. On summer nights it zooms around lights in fast, curvy loops.

Lives in
Eastern North America, from Canada to Florida, in woods, gardens and vineyards
Length
2.5 to 3 cm (0.98 to 1.2 in)
Top speed
about 0.71 km/h (0.44 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The grown-up beetle eats the leaves and fruit of grapevines. Its larvae live in the soil and eat rotting wood.
For real!Photo of Grapevine beetle
Picture by Bruce Marlin. CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Grapevine beetle about 3 cm long (1.2 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 5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 5.1 seconds

How big is Grapevine beetle compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Beetles in the north often have darker legs and more spots, while some in the south have no spots at all.

2

Its larvae can grow about 5 centimetres long, longer than the beetle itself.

3

It takes two whole years to grow from an egg into a beetle.

4

Even though it eats grape leaves, it usually does not do much harm to the vines.

5

Long ago one scientist thought there were 11 different kinds, but they all turned out to be the same beetle.

you asked

Most asked questions about Grapevine beetle

?Is the grapevine beetle harmful?

No. It does not hurt people, and it rarely does much damage to grapevines.

?What does a grapevine beetle eat?

Grown-ups eat grape leaves and fruit. The larvae eat rotting wood in the soil.

?How big is a grapevine beetle?

It is about 2.5 to 3 centimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Pelidnota punctata
Group
Beetles
Family
Scarabaeidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Scarabaeidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
Spotted June beetle, Spotted pelidnota

Where the facts come from

  1. Pelidnota punctata (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 Bruce Marlin. CC BY-SA 2.5, 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.

More from the same group: Beetles

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows