Colorado potato beetle
| Colorado potato beetle | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Coleoptera |
| Suborder: | Polyphaga |
| Family: | Chrysomelidae |
| Genus: | Leptinotarsa |
| Species: | L. decemlineata |
| Binomial name | |
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Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say, 1824 |
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The Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata), also known as the Colorado beetle, the ten-striped spearman, the ten-lined potato beetle or the potato bug, is a major pest of potato crops. It is approximately 10 millimetres (0.39 in) long, with a bright yellow/orange body and five bold brown stripes along the length of each of its elytra.
The Colorado potato beetle was first discovered by Thomas Nuttal in 1811 and described in 1824 by Thomas Say from specimens collected in the Rocky Mountains on Solanum rostratum (buffalo-bur).
Adult beetles average 6–11 mm in length and 3 mm in width. The beetles are orange-yellow in colour with ten characteristic black stripes on the elytra. The species name decemlineata, meaning 'ten lines' derives from this feature. Adult beetles may, however, be visually confused with L. juncta, the false potato beetle, which is not an agricultural pest. L. juncta also has alternating black and white strips on its back, but one of the white strips in the center of each wing cover is missing and replaced by a light brown strip.
The orange-pink larvae have a large, nine segment, abdomen and black head, prominent spiracles and may measure up to 15 mm in length in their final instar stage. The beetle larva has four instar stages. The head remains black throughout these stages, but the pronotum changes colour from black in first- and second-instar larvae to having an orange-brown edge in its third-instar. In fourth-instar larvae, about half the pronotum is coloured light brown.
The beetle is native to America and Mexico and is present in all States of American except Alaska, California, Hawaii, and Nevada. It now has a wide distribution across Europe and Asia. Its first association with the potato plant, Solanum tuberosum, was not known until about 1859 when it began destroying potato crops in the region of Omaha, Nebraska. It had spread east and reached the Atlantic Coast by 1874.
In 1877, the Colorado beetle reached the United Kingdom and was first recorded from Liverpool docks. There have been many further outbreaks but the species has been eradicated in the UK at least 163 times. The last major outbreak was in 1976. It remains as a notifiable quarantine pest in the United Kingdom and is monitored by DEFRA in order to prevent it becoming established.
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Wikipedia