Bloody-nosed beetle
The bloody-nosed beetle is a round, shiny beetle that is blue-black all over. It walks slowly through the grass, mostly at night. Its big trick is in its name: when something attacks it, it spits out a drop of bright red liquid.
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Fun facts
The red drop is really its own blood. It squeezes it out of its mouth, and the bad taste makes hungry birds let go.
Ladybirds use a similar trick, letting out bad-tasting drops when they are scared.
The mother lays her eggs on bedstraw in spring, and the young beetles spend the winter resting as pupae.
Its babies, the larvae, are also blue-black and can grow as long as the grown-up beetle.
Its feet end in a tiny double hook that helps it hold on to stems.
Most asked questions about Bloody-nosed beetle
?Is the bloody-nosed beetle dangerous?
No. It only spits out a drop of bad-tasting red liquid to scare off animals that want to eat it.
?Why is it called bloody-nosed?
Because when it is scared, a drop of bright red liquid comes out of its mouth, as if it had a nosebleed.
?What does the bloody-nosed beetle eat?
It eats bedstraw leaves. Its larvae eat only bedstraw too.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Timarcha tenebricosa
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Chrysomelidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Chrysomelidae
- Lives on
- Europe
- Also known as
- Blood spewer, Blood-spewing beetle
Where the facts come from
- Bloody-nosed beetle (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 Hectonichus. 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 [email protected] and we will fix it.
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