Brown Paropsine Beetle - Paropsis immaculata>
Subfamily Chrysomelinae, FAMILY CHRYSOMELIDAE
This page contains information and pictures about Brown Paropsine Beetles that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Body length 12mm
Those Acacia Leaf Beetles are common in Brisbane bushland. They are reddish-brown in colour. We sometimes find many of them on the Acacia trees, from early summer to later summer. Both adults and larvae feed on Acacia leaves.
- When they sense the danger, the Acacia Leaf Beetles hide their legs and antenna under. When we come closer, like most other small beetles, they slide to the edge of the leaf and drop to the ground.
- So we always put our hand under the leaf when we want to have a closer look at the beetle. When the beetle first drops onto our hand, it hides all its legs and antenna under its body and does not move. After a while, when it feels there is no danger, it walks around on our hand. The second picture shows the beetle on Tony's finger.
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The Acacia Leaf Beetle Larvae and Pupa
- Larva body length 10mm
- We found many colourful larvae on a Acacia tree in Wishart bushland. Their abdomen is round like a ball, orange-red in colour, with black dots. They were feeding openly on leaves.
- At first we did not know they are the Acacia Leaf Beetle larvae. Anyway, we thought they should be beetle larvae. We collected two of them and brought them home with some Acacia leave as their food.
- Pupa length 10mm
- The two larvae had no problem in a jar and kept on feeding on the leaves. We clean the jar and put in new leaves every two days. They were slow moving. About a week later, they went down to the bottom of the jar and rest without motion. A day later, they moult and became pupa. The pupa are not motionless. If disturbed, they will quickly wave their abdomen a few times.
- After eight days, the two pupa turned into the Acacia Leaf Beetles. After keeping them a few days, we brought them back to the bush.
Acacia Leaf Beetle Eggs
- Eggs, length 2mm
- On early summer, we found something look like insect eggs on an Acacia leaf, near them there was some Acacia Leaf Beetle adults. We believed they are their eggs. We brought them home and a week later, the eggs turned into three little beetle larvae, dark brown in colour, with the same body shape as the later instars.
- Eggs 2mm, 1st instars 2mm
- A week later, we found another batch of eggs on an Acacia leaf, the egg colour look a little bit different. We took them home, later in the evening, those eggs started to hatch as shown in the above picture. The dark larvae had came out a few minutes ago and starting to eat its egg case. The lighter brown colour one had just came out. Watch carefully, we can see the other two egg case were about to open.
- Eggs, length 2mm
Leaf Beetle Parasitoids
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- We found the Leaf Beetle eggs on Acacia leaf in Karawatha Forest during early summer. We brought the leaf home with the eggs. We kept the eggs in a jar and expected to see the Leaf Beetle nymphs came out. However, a few days later, we saw some small black wasp flying inside the jar. Carefully inspected the eggs, all eggs had a round opening, which is the typical mark made by parasitic wasp when they emerge. All five eggs were infected.
The Host Plant
- Black Wattle
- Acacia leiocalyx subsp. leiocalyx, family Mimosaceae
Black Wattles are one of the most common trees in Brisbane's Eucalypt forest and bushland.
- Many of this species beetles can be found on the same Black Wattle trees. Both adults and larvae can be found at the same time. They seems perfect large wattle instead of young wattle. On some infected trees, every leaves might have the beetles' bite marks.
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