Even though it’s “air-conditioned” my sweet potato leaves, this is one insect I’m gonna leave be.
Just because it’s sooo purty. This picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s more golden than it looks here.
I saw a tiny golden bug in the garden one day and caught it in a jar to take inside to identify it. When I looked at it in the house it wasn’t gold anymore! Hunh?
I ID’d it anyway–golden tortoise beetle, or metronia bicolor, family Chrysomelidae.
I got some more pictures:
It’s a little less exciting in it’s in-between stages:
But it’s like a droplet of pure gold when it grows up.
It’s extra-special because it isn’t always gold–it can change it’s gorgeous gold to a dull coppery brown in an instant–as I found out when I tried to jar it.
Smaller than a ladybug, it feeds on plants in the convulvus family, which includes morning glories and my sweet potatoes. It doesn’t seem to be doing enough damage to warrant getting rid of them.
Which is a good thing because I don’t think I could smush this one even if it was eating everything in sight.
Here’s more tortoise beetle reading.
It’s beauty may be skin deep, but I’m a sucker for it anyway.
TL
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Read your resource, it’s gorgeous! Until I read this (and this is why I couldn’t smush it) “Larvae carry a fecal shield over their bodies.” Hmmm. I’ll have to remember that when I’m thinking of ways to defend myself… But GROSS!
I thought it was a smidge of bird poop when I first saw one on my potatoes last year. then, they attacked my tomatoes, too. Apparently, they don’t usually eat the nightshades, and they aren’t usually found up here in Maine, but they are back this year, air-conditioning my nightshades. I squish them now, pretty as they are.
Posts like this make me SOOOOO glad you represent the suburbs. We are not simply the great, unwashed, Nickelodeon-watching masses. We can write… well, you can, for SURE… I feel like sending this to all of my friends who live in the city because the houses have “more character.”
THANK YOU!
You adorable softy, you – and I mean you Tomato Lady, not the cute critter. How cool of you to appreciate this little guy instead of summarily executing him (her?) for crimes of pestness (New word. Just made it up) even when he is sharing your food.
megan–Uh-oh. They better leave my tomatoes alone. So far they are happy to stick with the shweet taters.
missourimom62–Well, shoot, thank you! I’m not sure I deserve the compliment, but I like it anyway!
lorrwill–Ha! Crimes of pestness indeed!
Well, it isn’t a squash bug. I slay them with enthusiasm.