Colorado potato beetle: Where It Lives, Map & Facts

Where the Colorado potato beetle lives – recorded in 22 countries, with quick facts from Wikidata and an introduction from Wikipedia.

Scientific name	Leptinotarsa decemlineata
Group	Beetles
Found in	22 countries
Continents	Europe, North America
Diet (main food)	tomato
Class	Insect
Order	Coleoptera
Family	Chrysomelidae

Where does the Colorado potato beetle live?

Open-licence (CC0 / CC BY) wild records published on GBIF place the Colorado potato beetle in 22 countries and territories across Europe and North America. In Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia it is listed as introduced (GRIIS checklists via GBIF).

Germany
Belgium
France (introduced)
United States
Russia (introduced)
Austria (introduced)
Canada
Hungary
Ukraine
Switzerland
Mexico
Czech Republic (introduced)
Denmark (introduced)
Italy (introduced)
Poland (introduced)
Netherlands (introduced)
Spain
Luxembourg (introduced)
Lithuania (introduced)
Portugal
Slovakia
Romania (introduced)

Countries with at least a handful of records (a minimum share of the species’ records, to leave out vagrants and escapes). Records with coordinates only; captive and fossil records excluded.

What does a Colorado potato beetle eat?

Wikidata lists the main food source of the Colorado potato beetle as: tomato.

What kind of animal is the Colorado potato beetle?

The Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) is an insect in the order Coleoptera and the family Chrysomelidae, genus Leptinotarsa. (Taxonomy from Wikidata.)

About the Colorado potato beetle

The Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata; also known as the Colorado beetle, the ten-striped spearman, the ten-lined potato beetle, and the potato bug) is a beetle known for being a major pest of potato crops. It is about 10 mm (3⁄8 in) long, with a bright yellow/orange body and five bold brown stripes along the length of each of its wings. Native to the Rocky Mountains, it spread rapidly in potato crops across the United States and then Europe from 1859 onwards.

The Colorado potato beetle was first observed in 1811 by Thomas Nuttall and was formally described in 1824 by American entomologist Thomas Say. The beetles were collected in the Rocky Mountains, where they were feeding on the buffalo bur, Solanum rostratum.

Text in “About” is quoted from the Wikipedia article Colorado potato beetle (revision 1374816757), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: lead section excerpted verbatim, formatting removed. Quick facts, taxonomy and status: Wikidata Q156954 (CC0). Countries and pin: GBIF.org occurrence records (CC0 / CC BY 4.0).