Tarnished plant bug
The tarnished plant bug is a small brown bug with bits of yellow, orange or red. On its back there is a light coloured V shape. It has a mouth like a tiny straw for sucking plant juice.
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Fun facts
It feeds on more than half of all the crops that farmers grow.
It is a big pest for small fruits and vegetables.
Grown-ups like to spend the winter in apple orchards.
Scientists look at the pollen stuck on it to find out which plants it visited.
It also feeds on weeds that grow next to fields.
Most asked questions about Tarnished plant bug
?What does the tarnished plant bug eat?
It sucks juice from many plants, including beans, cotton and fruit.
?How big is the tarnished plant bug?
It grows up to about 6.5 millimetres long.
?Does the tarnished plant bug bite?
No, it is harmless to people. It only pokes plants with its mouth.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Lygus lineolaris
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Miridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Miridae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Tarnished plant bug (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 Rylee Isitt. CC BY-SA 2.0, 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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