Jewel Beetle from India: genus Sternocera

Posted by bugman October 11th, 2009 at 10:38 am

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Is it a jewel beetle
October 9, 2009
The Beetle Picture i took from SNGP Forest Area. First time i am saw the
beautiful insect. Pl. let me me know the id ?
Hari Iyer
Yeeor, Thane, Maharashtra, India.

Jewel Beetle from India

Hi Hari Iyer,
Yes, this is a Jewel Beetle, one of the common names for a Metallic Wood Boring Beetle in the family Buprestidae. We will see if one of our readers is able to find the exact species name for you.

Ed Note: Thanks to Karl for providing a comment identifying the genus as Sternocera, and providing several links with confirmation imagery.

add Jewel Beetle from India: genus Sternocera

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Comments 2

kkroeker wrote:
Hi Hari Iyer:
This looks like a Jewel Beetle (Buprestidae) in the genus Sternocera. There are at least four species in India that look very similar to the one in your photo (S. chrysis, S. basalis, S. orientalis and marseuli), and there may be more. For comparison you can check out: http://web.romascuola.net/bups/sterasia.htm or http://pagesperso-orange.fr/virtual-beetles/busterasie.html. Regards. K
Posted 12 Oct 2009 at 9:11 am ¶
kp wrote:
Back in the 60′s in India we used to gently capture this ‘gold bee’ as we called it back then, and have it sit on our hands. It is surprisingly docile and does not try to escape. All you got to do is to pat it on its hard brown wing case, and it would settle down nicely for next 10 minutes of so. We would let it fly off after an hour or so. It is simply beautiful!
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 1:29 am ¶