Green dock beetle
The green dock beetle is a small shiny beetle that sparkles like a jewel. In different light it can look gold green, blue, purple or even red. It lives on dock leaves and munches lots of holes in them.
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Fun facts
Its green colour is not paint. It comes from very thin layers in its shell that bend the light.
One female can lay more than 1000 eggs, in little bunches under the leaves.
The eggs are cream to yellow and turn orange just before they hatch.
Before the mother lays her eggs, her tummy gets so big it pokes out from under her wing cases.
The larva digs a little hole in the ground to turn into a beetle.
Most asked questions about Green dock beetle
?What does the green dock beetle eat?
Mostly the leaves of dock and sorrel plants.
?Is the green dock beetle harmful?
Not to people. It only nibbles dock leaves, a weed many gardeners do not want anyway.
?How big is a green dock beetle?
Males are about 4 millimetres and females about 7 millimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Gastrophysa viridula
- Named by
- De Geer, 1775
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Chrysomelidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Chrysomelidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- Green dock leaf beetle, Green sorrel beetle
Where the facts come from
- Gastrophysa viridula (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 James K. Lindsey. 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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