Taxonomy
- Polyphaga
- Chrysomeloidea
- Chrysomelidae
- Phratora
- Phratora vulgatissima
Common name
Blue Willow Beetle
Images
Source: Roger Key
Source: Lech Borowiec
Description
Size: 4-5.5mm
Basic colour: Usually metallic blue, sometimes greenish or green blue, or near-black.
Pattern colour: None
Number of spots: None
Other colour forms: Sometimes
Pronotoum: As basic colour
Leg colour: As basic colour
Basic colour: Usually metallic blue, sometimes greenish or green blue, or near-black.
Pattern colour: None
Number of spots: None
Other colour forms: Sometimes
Pronotoum: As basic colour
Leg colour: As basic colour
Holarctic
Biology
Status: Widespread and common
Habitat: Various
Host plant: Willows, possibly also poplars, rarely on birches.
Overwintering: As adults under bark, in lesions on coppice shoots, in stems of Typha spp and in rubble.
Food: Adults on the underside of leaves; larvae also under leaves where they remove the epidermis - in large numbers can cause defoliation of willows.
Other notes: Parasitised by tachinid flies Meigenia floralis (as beetle larvae) and Medina separata (as adults); adults also parasitised by a nematode (Mermis sp.). Larvae predated by wasps (Vespidae: Eumeninae) Symmorphus bifasciatus and Ancistrocerus sp. Adults and larvae predated by the pentatomid shieldbug Rhacognathus punctatus; eggs and larvae predated by larvae of a hoverfly (Parasyrphus sp.) in continental Europe.
Habitat: Various
Host plant: Willows, possibly also poplars, rarely on birches.
Overwintering: As adults under bark, in lesions on coppice shoots, in stems of Typha spp and in rubble.
Food: Adults on the underside of leaves; larvae also under leaves where they remove the epidermis - in large numbers can cause defoliation of willows.
Other notes: Parasitised by tachinid flies Meigenia floralis (as beetle larvae) and Medina separata (as adults); adults also parasitised by a nematode (Mermis sp.). Larvae predated by wasps (Vespidae: Eumeninae) Symmorphus bifasciatus and Ancistrocerus sp. Adults and larvae predated by the pentatomid shieldbug Rhacognathus punctatus; eggs and larvae predated by larvae of a hoverfly (Parasyrphus sp.) in continental Europe.