Bug beetle is an incredibly beautiful insect. Gold wings attract artists, designers and photographers with their beauty. They are used to create jewelry, to decorate clothes and interior. At the same time, goldfish are unpleasant garden pests that have to be fought.
Gold family
Goldfish beetles are an amazing family of insects with bright, shiny, rainbow colors. Their shells shimmer in the sun, which goldfish also love.
In shape, these beetles are flat, long, cylindrical. Their paws are short but powerful.
Not all goldfish have a bright and golden color. There are species with a red, green, bronze tint of the body. Some bugs have spots on the body.
Goldilocks love the smell of tar, so they settle on freshly cut stumps. It prefers a goldfish beetle more deciduous trees than conifers.
Insects love to move and fly. It’s hard to catch them: they are very fast. Sensing danger, the goldfish beetle instantly slips away. And if you suddenly managed to overtake him, he pretends to be dead.
Goldfish larvae are vermiform. They lack legs and eyes, and their head is pulled into the chest. The front of the chest of these larvae is wider than all other parts of the body.
Goldfish food
Goldilocks are stem pests. They feed on both dead and healthy wood.
Each type of goldfish prefers "its" plant. Sometimes different representatives of beetles settle on parts of the same tree: roots, trunk, branches.
Determine the wood eaten by pests can be in appearance. If the gnawed holes are oval, then the goldfish beetle lives here. Round holes indicate the presence of other insects.
Types of gold
Bug beetles are divided into three groups: pests of berry species, pests of fruit species and forest pests.
Berry Pests:
- Narrow-bodied currant gold-beetle is an 8 mm long beetle, oblong in shape, with a copper-green color. Eats various types of currants.
Fruit pests:
- Above in the photo - a two-colored ash-tree gilding beetle. This is a golden green beetle 7 mm long. Eats such trees as plum, apricot, peach.
- Narrow-bodied pear-bearing gold-beetle - copper-red beetle. Its dimensions are 1 cm. It eats an apple tree, pear and some forest species: hawthorn and mountain ash.
- Fruit Zlatka - black beetle with white dots 2-4 cm long. Damages plum, almonds, apricot and other breeds. It is also dangerous for non-fruit species: willow, poplar, etc.
- Copper Zlatka - an oval copper-red beetle up to 3 cm long. It feeds on stone trees: sweet cherry, apricot.
- Black goldfish is the largest pest of fruit trees. This beetle reaches 3 cm in length. Trees such as cherry plum, apricot, plum, cherry, peach, almonds eat.
Pest of both fruit and berry plants:
- Smoky goldfish - a bug 1-2 cm in size of bronze color. It occurs on berry and fruit crops: on hawthorn, apricot, etc.
Forest pests:
- Fruit goldfish (pictured above) and narrow-body pear goldfish - beetles that eat both fruit and wild forest trees.
Bug beetle in art
Gold wings are used for jewelry, decor, and even in art. Artist Jan Faber creates paintings and sculptures from the elytra of these insects. First, Faber creates a sketch on the canvas, and then spreads the picture with this natural material.
Jan Faber receives wings of a goldfish beetle from Malaysian restaurants: there they eat these insects.
In 2014, Jan Faber opened an exhibition at the PinchukArtCentre in Kiev. There were presented mosaics and sculptures.
The artist created works of art with his assistants. The entire exposition took two months. Ian Faber claims that one would have to work for more than two years.
Black Goldfish - Garden Pest
Black goldfish - a bug 2 cm long, a pest of fruit trees. This goldfish is black with white dots on the wings. The beetle is quite hard: crushing it is difficult.
Black goldfish harms fruit trees: apricot, plum, cherry plum and others. Adults eat bark, petioles and buds of young trees. Larvae feed on roots. Young trees populated by goldfish quickly die.
Fighting the Black Gold
Do not worry if a black gold leaf is wound up in your garden. You can fight it. There are several ways:
- Proper care It is important to regularly and timely water the young plantings of fruit trees. The roots of trees and shrubs remaining in the soil should be removed during planting, as they may contain black goldfish larvae. Wild trees (wild cherry plum, wild blackthorn) should not grow near the garden. They must be removed, otherwise they can become a hotbed of black goldfish. It is also important to properly cultivate the soil and fertilize.
- Deliverance through chemistry. Crowns of trees are treated with organophosphorus compounds. But you need to be careful, as they can be poisoned.
- Deliverance manually. You can shake off bugs from a tree, collect and destroy pests. This method is popular in home gardens.
Bug beetle is both a beautiful insect, whose wings are used to create whole paintings, and an unpleasant garden pest. It is not difficult to cope with it, the main thing is to notice in time.