Beetle Id Please

[2down]

I am new here, a gardener starting to take a bit more interest in the insects around me, rather than treating them as bugs. Can somebody tell me what this beetle is. It is about the size of a ladybird but it's most distinguishing feature is it being very shiny.

[wyevilla]

Hi 2down, welcome to WAB.

Hard to say exactly which species but it looks very much like a leaf beetle(Chrysomelidae family).

[ChrisR]

Which plants have you found them on? They look a little like the Rosemary leaf-beetle

[2down]

Thank you both for very quick replies. I googled more images of the Rosemary Leaf Beetle and it looks right, I don't remember stripes being so dominant but I will look more closely next time I find one.

In my images they are on an annual Phlox called Midnight Candy but I have Rosemary, Thyme and Lavender close by and it appears they feed on all these.

[jeremiah]

They aren't native.
They stripped my rosemary last year, it nearly died.
They are laying eggs now, the larvae will be active over winter.

When the michaelmas daisies next to my rosemary are finally over, and there's nothing nearby for the bees, I will spray the little so-and-sos. As many times as it takes.

[Rossco]

I can't see much in the way of striping from those photos. It looks more like Chrysolina bankii, sometimes also spelled C. banksii. Take a look at some photos on the web.

[JRsbugs]

Chrysolina bankii looks a good match to me.

http://www.koleopterologie.de/galler...omelinae1.html

Janet

[2down]

Thanks to you both for suggesting Chrysolina bankii. Some of the images show Chrysolina bankii with a very dimpled body e.g.

help with beetle id?

but the image in your link Janet is exactly what I saw.

Whatever it eats jerimiah I don't think I could spray it.

[jeremiah]

2down - I don't normally spray anything.

I have codling moth, raspberry beetle, rose sawfly, valerian sawfly, leaf-cutter bees, blackspot, frogs, a toad, newts, slugs and hordes of snails. And an overgrown back garden with foxes shrieking and fighting in it, to the outrage (expressed) of my neighbours. I check prunings for snails and insects before I bag them for the tip.

Rosemary beetle isn't native; it eats the rosemary shoots down to the stem and prevents it flowering. The bush hasn't flowered for two years - it used to be a valuable early nectar source for bees. So I'm going to try to get rid of them. Where they are native (round the Med) they don't destroy the rosemary in the same way.