Cereal Leaf Beetle (copulation)

Description:

The beetle is mostly blue-black in color, with an area of deep red just behind the head. The legs are dull orange. It overwinters in fields of wild grasses, and as the weather warms in the spring, it enters cultivated fields and deposits eggs. The larvae emerge and cover themselves with their own excreta to mimic the droppings of birds or other insects. They usually appear as shiny, wet lumps adhered to the surface of leaves. They gorge on the plants, then drop off and pupate in the soil for about three weeks, emerging full-grown to continue feeding on the plants. Both adults and larvae prefer young plant shoots or areas of new growth on established plants.

Habitat:

The most common host plants of the cereal leaf beetle are barley, oats, and wheat, but they are also found on rye, millet, rice, many types of wild grasses, and new corn shoots. he beetle has a history as a major crop pest in Europe, Asia, and parts of north Africa, but serious eradication efforts did not begin until the pest began to destroy oat fields in the United States in the 1960s. I have also found them in an abound number all over the meadows close to the river Sava.