Red cotton stainer
The red cotton stainer is a bright red bug with a white collar and black spots on its wings. It loves cotton plants. When it feeds, it can stain the white cotton fluff a dirty colour.
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Fun facts
When it sucks on cotton seeds, it lets in tiny germs that make the cotton fluff go yellow or brown. That is how it got its name.
When the seeds on one plant are ripe, the grown-ups fly off to find new plants.
While travelling, it sips nectar and fruit juice and can go several days without food.
A mother digs little rooms in the soil and lays 60 to 90 eggs in each batch.
The eggs hatch after about five days, and the young need 30 to 40 days to grow up.
Most asked questions about Red cotton stainer
?Why is it called a cotton stainer?
While it feeds on cotton seeds, germs get in and stain the white cotton fluff.
?Is the red cotton stainer harmful?
Not to people. It harms cotton and some other crops.
?How big is the red cotton stainer?
It is about 1.2 to 1.8 centimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dysdercus cingulatus
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Pyrrhocoridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Pyrrhocoridae
- Lives on
- Asia, Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Dysdercus cingulatus (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 Rushenb. 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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