Bug card No. 1438 of 1,500

Western flower thrips

Frankliniella occidentalis

Eats: Plants Other insectsGardens and meadows6 legs

The western flower thrips is a teeny tiny insect, only about as long as a grain of sugar. It is thin, with two pairs of fringed wings. It lives inside flowers and sucks juice from plants, which makes farmers and gardeners quite cross.

Lives in

First from the southwest United States, now also in Europe, Australia and South America

Length

1 to 1.4 mm (0.04 to 0.06 in)

Top speed

about 0.16 km/h (0.1 mph)

On foot, estimate

Can it hurt you?

Can bite or sting

It may give a tiny nip if you wear bright clothes, and the skin can get a little itchy. It does not drink blood and does not make people sick.

What does it eat?

It feeds on more than 500 kinds of plants, like fruit, vegetables and garden flowers. The young ones love fresh little fruits that are just starting to grow.

Photo of Western flower thrips — Picture by Frank Peairs, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org. CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

4 of them in a row are as long as one grain of ricecould run across a dinner table in 22 secondsmoves 32 times its own body length every second

How big is Western flower thrips compared to YOU?

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

How fast is it?

A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)

Western flower thrips about 0.16 km/h (0.1 mph)

A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)

A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

It loves the colour blue. Gardeners catch it with blue sticky cards and even blue lights.

Most of them are girls. A mum can lay eggs that hatch into boys without any dad at all.

One female can lay from 40 to more than 100 eggs, right inside the plant.

It can spread a virus that makes tomato plants very sick.

Farmers use tiny hunting mites and bugs that eat thrips to protect their plants.

you asked

Most asked questions about Western flower thrips

?Do thrips bite people?

Sometimes they land on people in bright clothes and give a tiny nip. It can itch a bit but it is not dangerous.

?How big is a western flower thrips?

It is about 1 to 1.4 millimetres long, so you can barely see it.

?Why are thrips bad for plants?

They suck plant juice, leave silvery spots and can spread a plant virus.

For bug experts

Scientific name: Frankliniella occidentalis
Named by: Pergande, 1895
Group: Other insects
Family: Thripidae
Classification: Insecta > Thysanoptera > Thripidae
Lives on: North America, Europe, Australia and Oceania, South America

Where the facts come from

Western flower thrips (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 Frank Peairs, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org. CC BY 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.