Pea aphid
The pea aphid is a big aphid, but still smaller than a grain of rice. Most are green, but some are red or pink. It lives on peas, clover and other bean-family plants and drinks their sap.
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Fun facts
In summer the mothers have babies without any dads, 4 to 12 babies a day.
A baby grows up into a mother itself in only about one to two weeks.
When it gets too crowded, some aphids are born with wings so they can fly to a new plant.
In autumn the mothers lay eggs that wait through the winter and hatch in spring.
Scientists love to study it, and it was the first aphid to have its whole set of genes read.
Most asked questions about Pea aphid
?What does the pea aphid eat?
It sucks sap from peas, clover, alfalfa, beans and other bean-family plants.
?Why are some pea aphids red?
Pea aphids come in green or red and pink. The colour is passed from mother to babies, and green is more common.
?How big is a pea aphid?
It can be up to 4 millimetres long, which is big for an aphid.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Acyrthosiphon pisum
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Aphididae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Aphididae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Green dolphin, Pea louse, Clover louse
Where the facts come from
- Acyrthosiphon pisum (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 Shipher Wu (photograph) and Gee-way Lin (aphid provision), National Taiwan University. CC BY 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.
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