That does look a bit like a flea!
While photographing last week, I found a shiny green beetle that was kind enough to let me get some shots of it. I found it curled up and hiding in a plant stem and managed to annoy it enough that it started walking around.
When it came time to identify this beetle, I didn’t have much hope. After all, there are thousands of “shiny green beetles” out there and I didn’t have too much hope of figuring out what this is.
To my surprise, I think I do know what this is. It looks a lot like a flea beetle (family chrysomelidae, subfamily alticinae). I am not 100% sure, but it does look awfully like a flea from the front - doesn’t it?
As with all types of beetles, there are a wide variety of flea beetles out there. They are characterized by strong jumping legs in the back - which makes me slightly unsure about this one. They also have the ability to jump - though I didn’t see this one jump and I certainly annoyed it quite a bit.
You can probably tell here that I am working on my profile shots. Unfortunately this one didn’t get close enough to the edge of the leaf so this is the best I got.
Some flea beetles are pests, while others are beneficial. It depends on the species. However, they can be pests for seedlings and therefore there does exist a good deal of info on the web about controlling them.
Still, it was nice seeing a new type of insect and even nicer if I happened to identify it correctly!
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Tags: beetle, flea, flea beetle, macro, photography