Colorado Potato Beetle

insects · pests · potatoes

Tiny striped acrobat. The Colorado potato beetle is only about 10 millimeters long, roughly the size of a grain of rice, but its bright yellow or orange body with five bold brown stripes along each wing makes it super easy to spot.

Rocky Mountain native. This beetle originally lived in the Rocky Mountains, where it quietly munched on wild plants for centuries before potatoes arrived in North America.

Potato plant hijacker. When farmers started growing potatoes in the 1800s, the beetles discovered an all-you-can-eat buffet and spread like wildfire across the United States and then to Europe starting around 1859.

Super strong appetite. Both adult beetles and their bumpy orange larvae are voracious eaters that can strip a potato plant down to nearly nothing, which is why farmers have battled them for over 150 years.

World traveler. The Colorado potato beetle spread so fast across continents that it became one of the most famous agricultural pests in history and is still a major problem for potato farmers today.