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Coraebus sp
It looked like a bit of dirt really, on the leaves of a climbing Jasminum plant. It is only in the photographs that I can see the designs on its back.
My garden.
Is it laying eggs? The dark egg-like stuff was not quite under the insect though....maybe it had finished the business of laying? Family Buprestidae
Your observation, Sukanya, may be a new discovery. Usually, entomologists are not botanists at same time. They see a beetle on a "leaf", grab it, kill it - and loose the opportunity to know more about it as a part of nature.
In Jewel beetles (and most other groups), as a rule you find that larvae that develop in living (or very freshly dead) plant tissues are host-specific - most frequently, on genus- or family level of plants. To know about these relations may help a lot in IDing observations, finding, and monitoring species.
It is definitely a field for citizen naturalists - new discoveries for science highly probable not far away :-)
thaptor, I am blown away by your generosity in sharing your enormous expertise...many, many thanks.
It is feeding, stuff underneath is poop.
If a Buprestid is observed feeding leaves, you may assume the plant also is the larval host.
Your beetle strongly resembles the species Coraebus rubi - which occurs in Europe, middle East and "east palearctic zone". If this includes India? - I guess not. C. rubi, in Europe, is strictly bound on Raspberry and allies.
Jasminum is unrelated, I assume your beetle is not C.rubi.
Spotted on May 8, 2014
Submitted on May 8, 2014
