#Spotted Cucumber Beetle

[vandaliatraveler]

Autumn on Snake Hill.

Elevation makes a huge difference in the Central Appalachians. Canaan Valley was at peak color almost two weeks ago. A thousand feet lower, at Snake Hill Wildlife Management Area, the leaves are just starting to approach peak. From top: red maple leaves drape fan clubmoss; the white-glazed, blue-purple berries of common greenbrier, an important food source for wildlife in the fall and winter; oldfield aster, also known as frost aster; milkweed pods release their precious seed; goldenrod gone to seed; the blue-black berries of mapleleaf viburnum, whose blushing red leaves are one of autumn's great joys; the brilliant yellow foliage of wild yam; the fiery red bolts of sourwood's dying flame; red oak burning away at the trail's edge; eastern teaberry loaded up with its distinctive red berries; a gorgeous Maryland golden-aster, one of the last beauties standing before the frost; and a spotted cucumber beetle, which despite its innocent appearance is a bane of late season gardens.

[onenicebugperday]

found in NY! mistook this fella for a ladybug then freaked out

pretty sure i’ve seen him before in animal crossing

Idk anything about animal crossing but it's a spotted cucumber beetle!

[little-ceramic-head]

Spotted cucumber beetle ashtray for a friend

[indigrassy]

Girly-pop bug

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Spotted Cucumber Beetle - Diabrotica undecimpunctata

A yellow insect among the yellow goldenrod flowers? It's a near perfect area to blend into while feeding...but those spots might be a tad conspicuous. To be perfectly honest, I don't have a lot to say regarding today's beautiful Beetle specimen. It was nice to photograph one in such a beautiful area. It's vibrant color makes it eye-catching as summer shifts into autumn. As I mentioned in an earlier post, although this Beetle is a summer insect I seem to find them more often the closer Ontario gets to autumn. This one appears to be foraging alongside other insects among the pollen-covered goldenrod, adding more insight into the wide variety of plant material in the adult Beetle's diet. As a Leaf Beetle, leaves are definitely on the menu, alongside the namesake cucumber/melon family of fruits, so it's nice to see one eating something completely out of left field. The other observation of note is that its abdomen appears slightly enlarged. That is to say, it's poking out from behind the wingcase. This abdomen swelling/poking may indicate that this individual is a female and will later on be full of eggs. This is only speculation, but the sight does appear similar to the beginning of swelling that occurs in a close relative, the Goldenrod Leaf Beetle. Mind you, that Beetle's abdomen swells up dramatically when full of eggs. A Spotted Cucumber Beetle appearing gravid may be more subtle by comparison.

Pictures were taken on September 21, 2024 with a Google Pixel 4. Happy Thanksgiving Weekend! And don't forget, both the Spotted, and the Striped Cucumber Beetle may call an Ontario garden home.

[clannfearrunt]

I love this photo. The cucumber beetle in the sky reflected on the windshield...

[wildflowers-of-southern-ontario]

Spotted Cucumber Beetle Diabrotica undecimpunctata Chrysomelidae

Photograph taken on September 23, 2022, at Marmora and Lake, Ontario, Canada.

[stopandlook]

Scientific Name: Diabrotica undecimpunctata Common Name(s): Spotted cucumber beetle, southern corn rootworm (larva) Family: Chrysomelidae (leaf beetle) Life Stage(s): Adult Location: Plano, Texas Season(s): Summer

[woozymitts]

European Paper Wasp (Polistes dominula) ♂ Spotted Cucumber Beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) Great Golden Digger Wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus) Five-banded Thynnid Wasp (Myzinum quinquecinctum) Common Blue Mud-dauber Wasp (Chalybion californicum) Chrysidini sp. Four-banded Stink Bug Wasp (Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus) Megachile sp. Parallel-striped Sweat Bee (Halictus parallelus) Myzinum maculatum ♀ Archytas apicifer? Goldenrod Soldier Beetle (Chauliognathus pensylvanicus) Archytas apicifer? Common Eastern Bumble Bee (Bombus impatiens) ♀ Common Eastern Bumble Bee (Bombus impatiens) ♂ Common Eastern Bumble Bee (Bombus impatiens) ♀ Lobed Mason Wasp (Ancistrocerus antilope) Narrow-headed Marsh Fly (Helophilus fasciatus) Hawthorn Mining Bee (Andrena crataegi)? Vespula Sp.

Foaming at the mouth at the absolute biodiversity in my yard this year! We have this bush in the yard that the wasps, bees and flies are obsessed with, which is where I took most of the pictures.

I also noticed these HUGE flies which I've never seen before. Usually if you even look in the general direction of a fly it immediately takes off but these ones could not care less, I could put my hand right up to them and they didn't move until I physically touched them.

Also once again completely baffled by the people who talk about how "aggressive" and "mean" wasps are and how they constantly get stung. What are you guys doing??? None of the above species gave a single shit about me shoving my macro lens in their faces, and if it was windy I would sometimes grab the branch they were on to hold it steady and none of them even reacted.

The queen bee (which has a stinger unlike the males) also made no effort to sting me, after picking her up for a photo she actually refused to get off of my hand because she wanted to sit on me and groom her face.

We've also had lots of yellowjackets (I'm so bad at IDing them so no idea on species) approaching us recently and checking us out, flying extremely close and looking at us and then flying away. Even if I put my hand up in front of them to see if they want to land they sort of just look at it and then fly away.

Last year there were paper wasps on nests in my yard and they would stare at me warily but never sting me when I photographed them.

Also feel free to ID things on my iNaturalist or correct me on any IDs here!

[fivetrench]

I FOUND IT

(Sorry about the weird photo, it was actively trying to fly away so I kept it sheltered in my hand lol)

I JUST SAW A CUCUMBER BEETLE ON MY CEILING BUT IT FLEW AWAY BEFORE I COULD GET A PICTURE

[long-lost-soul]

my favorite wildlife sightings from recently :]

[onenicebugperday]

@eviekean submitted: Hello! Last weekend I found some beetles that I'm 99% sure are spotted cucumber beetles. It's what the inaturalist AI suggested and there doesn't seem to be any look alikes in my area, but the beetles I found were eating a dead catfish and all of the information on them says they they eat plants. I can't find any other observations of them eating meat, it might just be because they're a major crop pest so all the research on them is related to that, but I wanted to get your opinion

Found along the shoreline of lake Erie in Western New York

Yes, they're spotted cucumber beetles. Even plant or nectar-eating bugs will take the opportunity to slorp on something dead for nutrients. Definitely not uncommon! Sometimes you'll see butterflies feeding on carrion or animal poop, too.

[little-ceramic-head]

Spotted cucumber beetle ashtray for a friend

[onenicebugperday]

I am admiring them and they are beautiful! And yes, it's true, spotted cucumber beetles and ladybugs are in different families :)

An adorable cucumber beetle I encountered on the exterior wall of my workplace today. I used to think these guys were ladybugs, just elliptical and green.

@onenicebugperday thought you might like to admire them

[jensownzoo]

Got all the fall seeds planted in various containers this week. It's about a month behind normal, but it's been so hot that I was afraid everything would be programmed to bolt immediately. It's going to be 90F today and tomorrow, then a short cold spell (but not frost), then we'll have appropriate weather for germinating everything.

I'm trying something different with the Tidy Cats litter tubs. I usually fill some up 3/4 full of water and shove them in black plastic contactor bags to serve as thermal mass in my cold frame. This year I'm going to also plant in them too (with holes drilled in the bottom) instead of using the earthboxes. I think it will make for a more compact structure, but we'll see if it works. The wire shelving is there because the wildlife has gone nuts with digging everything up in their own preparations for winter. It's very annoying.

But look to the right in that pic. That's my very vigorously growing cucumber and sweet potato bed that I put together during July. And look:

Just got 5 pints of gsrlic dill pickles from the Suyo Long cucumbers and I have those two Beit Alpha cakes to make some tzatziki with later today. There are quite a number of additional fruit setting too. With all the aged wood chips both incorporated into the soil and used as mulch, the bed may keep warm enough to allow me to harvest them even. You know, unless it freezes.

I also went and collected on a few permissions obtained earlier in the season and came home with three clumps of sprouting unharvested garlic and three cuttings from an enormous garden sage bush. The separated cloves ended up being three 6' rows of garlic in a raised bed that I was going to just grow vining flowers and African marigolds in next season. I stripped the leaves off the sage for the dehydrator and will try to root the stems to keep indoors over the winter and plant out in the spring.

Also also, I'm pretty stoked at my seed-saving/gathering efforts this year:

Not pictured are the buckets of French marigold and cosmos seeds I also collected. Got several new things to try growing as well as more pepper seeds than any one person could possibly need. May package some of them up to drop off at the food pantry in the spring. Gonna bomb my alley with the cosmos seeds come spring too. The bees freaking LOVED those flowers this year and I aim to please those fuzzy butts as well as beautify.

So the garden is pretty well in hand. Now for the semi-annual garden shed clean out and tidying to get done this week. (And then the garage, ugh)

[snekdood]

i both love and hate that i keep finding different moths in my house. why are they here? i dont want them to get caught on the sticky traps i put out for the flies. but also, very fun to see so many different varieties and knowing my garden probably plays a role somehow.