False Potato Beetle

Here's a False Potato Beetle. They are related to and look quite similar to the Colorado Potato Beetle, an insect that's the bane of potato farmers; the False Potato Beetle itself isn't considered to be environmentally or agriculturally damaging.

You can tell these beetles apart by looking at the white-and-black stripes on the elytra (the hard protective wings you see in the picture that cover their flight wings). The False Potato Beetle has one brown stripe on both the left and right elytra instead of a white stripe. (Unfortunately in this picture the brown stripe looks almost like one thick black stripe. This probably isn't a variation among False Potato Beetles but probably reflects sub-optimal lighting.)



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