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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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Posted in Insects 10 months ago at 12:33 pm.

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