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Sticker of Spined soldier bug
Bug card No. 1272 of 1,500

Spined soldier bug

Podisus maculiventris
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The spined soldier bug is a brown shield bug with a sharp spike on each shoulder, like a little knight in armour. It is a hunter that helps farmers and gardeners. It catches caterpillars and beetle grubs that eat crops.

Lives in
North America, from Canada down to Mexico, in fields, gardens and woodlands
Length
1.1 cm (0.43 in)
Top speed
about 0.19 km/h (0.12 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
It is not dangerous to people. It hunts insects, not children.
What does it eat?
It catches caterpillars, beetle larvae and many other insects and sucks them out with its long beak. When there is no prey around, it may sip a little plant juice.
For real!Photo of Spined soldier bug
Picture by Christina Butler. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Spined soldier bug about 1.1 cm long (0.43 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
as long as 2 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 19 seconds

How big is Spined soldier bug compared to YOU?

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

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

When it eats, it points its beak straight forward like a straw. Bugs that suck on plants point their beak downwards instead.

2

It hunts more than 90 kinds of insects, including many that damage potatoes, beans and corn.

3

People sell its eggs to farmers, so the bugs can hatch in greenhouses and eat the pests there.

4

A mother lays her tiny eggs in neat rows or groups, sometimes 70 at once. Each egg has little spikes around the top.

5

In cold places it spends the winter hiding under bark or old leaves and wakes up in spring.

you asked

Most asked questions about Spined soldier bug

?Is the spined soldier bug good or bad?

It is a helper. It eats many insects that harm crops, so farmers and gardeners like it.

?How big is a spined soldier bug?

A grown-up is about 11 millimetres long, a bit longer than a fingernail.

?What does a spined soldier bug eat?

Mostly caterpillars and beetle larvae, but it eats many other insects too.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Podisus maculiventris
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Pentatomidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Pentatomidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Spined soldier bug (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 Christina Butler. CC BY 2.0, 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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