Shining Leaf Chafer Beetle

Oh dear — another glorious little beetle who has been formally named, and then abandoned, a series of tiny stub articles on Wikipedia and not even mentioned in the Britannica article on shining leaf chafer beetles. I understand that even if 50% of the human population each picked a species of beetle and spent their whole lives studying that species, we wouldn’t have really made a dent in all there is to learn about these guys, but it just seems a shame when I find another “stub”.

Anomala innuba is a member of the Rutelinae family of beetles, iridescent little golden beetles which are both beautiful and pestiferous, causing damage to the host plants they live on by eating big ol’ holes in the leaves. (The family also includes the notorious Japanese beetle, Popillia japonica, for example.) Rutelinae vary in color and pattern even within species, making them difficult to identify — A. innuba looks a lot like A. undulata, and both species can be found with wildly varying patterns of spots, or even in a luscious chocolate-brown color. Other species of chafer beetle are bright green! These are lovely little beetles.

(Why is everything destructive so cute?!)

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