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Sticker of Green June beetle
Bug card No. 0666 of 1,500

Green June beetle

Cotinis nitida
Eats: PlantsBeetlesGardens and meadows6 legs

The green June beetle is a chunky, shiny beetle. Its back is dull green, its sides are golden, and its head, legs and belly shine bright green. It flies around in the daytime in early summer.

Lives in
The eastern United States and Canada, in lawns, gardens and orchards
Length
1.5 to 2.2 cm (0.59 to 0.87 in)
Top speed
about 0.61 km/h (0.38 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The grown-up beetles love sweet fruit, like berries, grapes, peaches and figs, especially when it is soft and rotting. The grubs eat rotting plant bits in the soil and sometimes roots.
For real!Photo of Green June beetle
Picture by Coveredinsevindust at English Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Green June beetle about 2.2 cm long (0.87 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 4 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 5.9 seconds

How big is Green June beetle compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its fat grub crawls along on its back, using stiff bristles on its body.

2

Its grub moves under the ground faster than any other scarab grub in the United States.

3

A mother beetle lays 60 to 75 eggs in the ground over two weeks.

4

The boy beetles have a tiny horn on their face.

5

Robins and blue jays love to catch these beetles on short-cut lawns.

you asked

Most asked questions about Green June beetle

?Do green June beetles bite?

No. They are harmless to people.

?What do green June beetles eat?

The beetles eat ripe and rotting fruit. The grubs eat rotting plant material in the soil.

?How big is a green June beetle?

It is about 15 to 22 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Cotinis nitida
Group
Beetles
Family
Scarabaeidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Scarabaeidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
June bug, June beetle

Where the facts come from

  1. Cotinis nitida (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 Coveredinsevindust at English Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 3.0, 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.

More from the same group: Beetles

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows