Subject: It’s blue – Trevor’s FAVORITE color
Location: Moore, OK
May 14, 2013 3:36 pm
It’s been about a year since our last submission (a Sumac Flea Beetle June 2012)! On Mother’s Day (May 12) my son found another really cool beetle that we would like to know what it is. Despite being a little guy, it stood out like a sore thumb on the beige ceiling of our back covered porch. Hopefully the picture is sufficient, fingers crossed. We had a really tough time getting the lighting just right to show off the truly bright blue metallic color of its carapace (in the pictures it appears dark but in real life it is lighter and bright). However, you can definitely see the distinct details of its orange head, antennae (not orange but ”segmented”), and its legs are the same bright orange as well.
Hope you can satisfy my 5 year old aspiring entomologist son’s curiosity (I’m pretty anxious too because it is such a beautiful little guy!)
Signature: Trevor’s mom

Shiny Flea Beetle

Dear Trevor’s Mom,
We are happy to hear Trevor’s interest in entomology hasn’t waned.  This is another Flea Beetle in the tribe Alticini.  It sure looks to us like the Shiny Flea Beetle, Asphaera lustrans, a species that is found in Oklahoma according to BugGuide.

Yay!! That’s it!! Trevor is sooooo excited!  I guess our creek in our backyard has all the right food sources for our various little “Leaf Beetle” friends   Thank you so much for your help.  My little entomologist cannot wait to send you his next exciting, but tougher to identify, live discovery.
I also have attached a few other pictures you and your staff might enjoy.  One is of Trevor’s collection that my mom (his Grandma), “Ma-su,” have put together from specimens they’ve gathered…pretty impressive for a 4-5year old kiddo! He also has a pet jumping spider of which we have some fun pictures which I have attached, including his picture with a blow up spider at our local museum’s (Sam Noble Museum in Norman, OK) Bug Exhibit! We also did an ant farm; soon we will order ladybug larvae for his Ladybug Land so we can watch their metamorphosis. Disclaimer: no bugs in the collection picture were harmed intentionally…all were discovered either in the swimming pool skimmer and/or after they had already gone to bug heaven before we found them!
Thanks again,
Trevor’s mom

Trevor’s Insect Collection

Wow, your swimming pool is a magnet for insects, including Caterpillar Hunters, Wheel Bugs, Grasshoppers, Scarabs, Cicadas, a Cottonwood Longhorn Borer, an Io Moth and a Painted Lady.  Trevor looks rapt with his ant farm.

Ant Farm has Trevor’s attention.

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Subject: Flea Beetles Eating Up Texas Primrose?
Location: Coryell County, central Texas
April 28, 2013 11:04 pm
Are these Flea Beetles, perhaps even Altica litigata, eating the Texas primrose? Bug Guide lists primrose as a food for the A. litigata, but I’m not sure if that’s what these insects are. They look like miniature Egyptian scarabs to me. I’ve included a photo of a healthy Texas primrose as contrast to the eaten ones. Warm, sunny weather today, 80 degrees. Thank you so much.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/492289
(Last entry for awhile, back to work for me! I enjoy your website so much. Makes me think, helps hone my research skills, and it’s all so interesting.)
Signature: Ellen

Flea Beetles

Hi again Ellen,
We agree that these are Flea Beetles.  We haven’t the necessary skills to key them down to a species level, but based on the stated food plants, we believe your identification of Altica litigata is most likely correct.

Flea Beetles

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Subject: Can’t ID this beetle
Location: The Nature Conservancy – Hassayampa River Preserve, Wickenburg, Arizona
August 15, 2012 6:03 pm
I looked through a dozen pages of pictures trying to ID this beetle but didn’t find anything. Can you ID him for me?
Signature: Adam Bloomer

Striped Willow Leaf Beetle

Hi Adam,
It didn’t take us too long to identify your Striped Willow Leaf Beetle, Disonycha alternata, thanks to the extensive archive on BugGuide.  We took the liberty of cropping your image and repositioning your name on the file so that it would better fit our website format.

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Subject: Not a ladybug!
Location: Moore, OK
June 3, 2012 1:07 pm
My 4 year old son is totally into bugs! He caught this lovely guy yesterday – not the usual ladybug that he typically brings in We want to know what it is?
He found it on the slide of his swingset in our backyard. June 2 in Moore, Oklahoma.
Signature: Trevor’s mom

Sumac Flea Beetle

Dear Trevor’s mom,
Though we immediately recognized this as a Leaf Beetle in the family Chrysomelidae and we recalled identifying it previously, we still needed to turn to BugGuide to research and we quickly identified this pretty little beetle as a Sumac Flea Beetle, Blepharida rhois.  According to BugGuideit is found:  “Throughout eastern US to AZ and southern CA / adj. Can.”  In a few days we will be going on a short holiday so we are postdating your identification to go live during our absence.

Sumac Flea Beetle

Thank you!  We had gotten so far as figuring out it was some kind of leaf beetle, but I’m a little rusty!  Thanks for the the quick reply   Not sure how he ended up in our yard…I don’t think there are any sumacs nearby!  Have a nice holiday

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Metallic blue and orange bug/beetle
Location: Central Texas
April 3, 2011 10:42 pm
I found him on the porch, he is pretty small. I have never seen one like it, we live in Central TX.
Signature: Patricia

Shining Flea Beetle

Hi Patricia,
This appears to be a Shining Flea Beetle, Asphaera lustrans, which we quickly identified on BugGuide.  Many Flea Beetles from the tribe Alticini as well as other Leaf Beetles in the family Chrysomelidae are considered to be significant agricultural pests.   The host plants of this Shining Flea Beetle are listed as Scullcap and Willow.  BugGuide notes this interesting remark:  “In Florida this is sometimes called the Gator beetle – due to the orange and blue-black colors approximating those of the UF Gators.”

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Green Metal Beetle
Location: Penang, Malaysia
March 27, 2011 11:24 pm
Hi Bugman!
I’ve developed an interesting hobby which is macrography but most of the time I’ve failed to identify the bugs within the photo because didn’t have much information on them. I’ve hope that I could learn more of this lovely insects and hopefully share my photos for all to enjoy
Signature: mysticz

Frog Legged Leaf Beetle

Dear mysticz,
This is some species of Flea Beetle in the tribe Alticini.  Flea Beetles are in the Leaf Beetle family  Chrysomelidae and the feed upon the leaves of plants.  Many Leaf Beetles are very host specific and many are considered agricultural pests.  We are going to try to research the exact species of Flea Beetle in your photo.  We did find a photo of your beetle on TrekNature, and it was photographed in Malaysia, but the species is not identified, and though it is identified as a Leaf Beetle, it is classified in a different subfamily.  We believe our Tribe identification to be correct, though we might be wrong. TrekNature indicates:  “in reality I think the local call it ‘Kumbang Hijau’  of equivalent to green beetle.”  We also found a photo of a similar beetle identified as a Frog Legged Beetle, Sagra buqueti, on the pharmasiana website, but that posting is riddled with incorrect information, beginning with the classification in the order Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) rather than Coleoptera (beetles), however we are going to pursue that information to see if we can get verification from a credible website.  God of Insects shows a Malaysian Frog Legged Beetle pair, Sagra buqueti, and the taxonomy is family Chrysomelidae.  The contrary information is on ZipCode Zoo where Sagra buqueti is identified as a Sphinx Moth.  The metallic coloration on the beetle images of Sagra buqueti differs from the green of your specimen, but they do look similar and we believe they may be closely related.  Scrolling down the I Love Flower Beetles Blog will show a posting dated October 12, 2010 that profiles the Frog Beetles and a video is included.  We believe we hit upon the correct ID, again on TrekNature, where a beetle identified as Sagra femorata looks identical to your beetle, down to the color.  There is a photo of a dead specimen on the Southeast Asian Beetles page of Beetle Diversity.  God of Insects calls Sagra femorata a Frog Legged Beetle and indicates it comes in variable color forms, including blue, green, red and magenta.  We end our search satisfied that this is a Frog Legged Leaf Beetle, Sagra femorata by linking to one final image on TrekNature.

Frog Legged Leaf Beetle

Mr Bugman,
Thank you so much for the identification, love and will continue to support your site.
b.rgds
mysticz

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