Figeater beetle
The figeater beetle is a big, shiny green beetle that loves sweet, ripe fruit. In the sun its back shimmers with colour. It buzzes loudly around gardens and orchards in summer looking for figs, peaches and grapes.
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Fun facts
Its shiny colour does not come from paint-like colour. Tiny twisted layers in its shell bend the light to make it shimmer.
Its grubs crawl on their backs, pushing along with rows of bristles instead of using their legs.
A fully grown grub can be 7.5 centimetres long.
If a fruit skin is too thick, it uses the little horn on its head to tear it open.
It finds ripe fruit by smell, because ripening and fermenting fruit gives off gases.
Most asked questions about Figeater beetle
?Is the figeater beetle dangerous?
No. It does not sting or bite and is harmless to people.
?What does a figeater beetle eat?
Soft, ripe fruit such as figs, peaches and grapes. Its grubs eat compost and rotting plants.
?How big is a figeater beetle?
About 3 centimetres long. The females are a bit bigger than the males.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Cotinis mutabilis
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Scarabaeidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Scarabaeidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
- Also known as
- Green fruit beetle, Fig beetle
Where the facts come from
- Figeater 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 No machine-readable author provided. Elf assumed (based on copyright claims).. 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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