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Sticker of Rose chafer
Bug card No. 1170 of 1,500

Rose chafer

Cetonia aurata
Eats: Nectar and pollenBeetlesGardens and meadows6 legs

The rose chafer is a shiny beetle that glitters metallic green, like a jewel. On sunny days in early summer you can find it sitting in roses and other flowers. Some rose chafers are copper, violet, black or grey instead of green.

Lives in
Southern and central Europe and southern Britain, also parts of Southeast Asia, in gardens and meadows
Length
2 cm (0.79 in)
Top speed
about 0.58 km/h (0.36 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting, so you can watch it up close on a flower.
What does it eat?
It eats pollen, nectar and flower petals, especially of roses. Its larvae eat rotting leaves and wood in compost heaps.
For real!Photo of Rose chafer
Picture by Chrumps. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Rose chafer about 2 cm long (0.79 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 3 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 6.2 seconds

How big is Rose chafer compared to YOU?

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

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its green colour is not paint-like colour. It comes from the way its shell bounces light back.

2

Look at it through 3D cinema glasses and the green shine can disappear, so it looks colourless.

3

Unlike most beetles, it flies with its wing cases closed down.

4

Its larvae are fat and curled like a C. They live in compost and help turn waste into soil.

5

From egg to beetle takes about two years.

you asked

Most asked questions about Rose chafer

?Are rose chafers good for the garden?

Their larvae are helpful in compost heaps, because they eat rotting plants. The beetles may nibble some flowers.

?Do rose chafers bite?

No. They are harmless to people.

?How big is a rose chafer?

About 2 centimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Cetonia aurata
Group
Beetles
Family
Scarabaeidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Scarabaeidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia
Also known as
Green rose chafer

Where the facts come from

  1. Cetonia aurata (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 Chrumps. 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