The green chafer is a stout, dull metallic-green chafer beetle from East Asia—Japan, Korea, and Taiwan—and you won't see it in the wild in the US. Its grubs feed on roots in the soil and are a known sugarcane pest in Japan's southwestern islands. It's also called the white-haired leaf chafer.
Appearance
- Appearance
- About 3/4–1 in (17–26 mm) long, with a round, stocky body. It is a weakly shiny metallic green.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Broadleaf woods
- Farms and orchards
- Towns and gardens
- Range
- Native to Japan (Honshu from the Chubu region west, Shikoku, Kyushu, and the Ryukyu Islands), Korea including Jeju Island, and Taiwan. Beetles reached Hawaii on aircraft from Japan in 1955–56 and 1971–72, but the species has not become established anywhere in the US.
Behavior
- Diet
- Adults chew the leaves of many kinds of broadleaf trees and some crops.
- Activity
- Often comes to lights at night.
- Overwintering
- There is one generation a year. Females lay eggs in the soil, the grubs spend the winter underground, and they pupate the next spring.
Life cycle
- Larva
- The C-shaped white grubs live in soil, eating roots and decaying plant matter. They are recorded on the roots of sugarcane, sweet potato, kenaf, and pine, and in Okinawa they periodically cause severe damage to sugarcane.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
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