The video of a golden tortoise beetle has captured the attention of the internet. Also known as Charidotella Sexpunctata, it is part of the leaf beetle family, Chrysomelidae and a native to the Americas.
The video of the shiny golden beetle has been shared by the handle Amazing Nature on Twitter. The video of these unique insects keep appearing on social media from time to time. And every time, it attracts the eyeballs of internet users.
The video shows at least three golden tortoise beetles crawling on the palm of a human. While one of them flies away as soon as the video starts, another one reaches the tip of the fingers.
The location of the video has not been shared by Amazing Nature and has been viewed more than 9.54 lakh times.
What are golden tortoise beetles?
According to Missouri Department of Conservation, the golden tortoise beetle, like other tortoise beetles, is nearly circular and rather flattened, and the pronotum shield completely covers the top of the head. This species is shiny metallic gold or orange when alive, and the edges of the elytral shields are transparent.
The golden colour changes at every stage of life and is eventually lost at death.
Life cycle
University of Florida has a paper on this unique species of insects, which says that the development time from egg to adult requires about 40 days.
The golden tortoise beetle is distributed widely in eastern North America, west to about Iowa and Texas. It is one of three species of tortoise beetle found in Florida.
In the northern states there usually is only one generation annually. In New Jersey the beetles first appear in May or June, commence feeding on weeds, and deposit eggs soon thereafter. A new population of adults is evident in July.
