How to Fight Golden Tortoise Beetles (Charidotella sexpunctata)

By Matt Gibson

Also known as goldbugs , or golden dame bugs , golden tortoise beetle are a common garden pest that jaw through the leaves of various plants , particularly morning nimbus vines and sweet potato vines . Despite their destructive nature , golden tortoise beetles are actually rather better-looking bugs . They are about one - fourth of an column inch long , and diverge from dark - Orange River to metallic Au in colour .

When they are not stressed , tortoise mallet incline to be shiny and Au . When stressed , they turn dark - orangish , or red , often with fatal or red aim on their backs , and the metallic element fade into a glossy - looking exterior . Tortoise beetles can dislodge their color at will also , to match the shade of the leaves they are feed on . They do this for flux into their surroundings . They look a piffling bit like ladybugs , but they are not closely related , despite the resemblance .

favourable tortoise beetles hold up off of the leaves of many common garden plant , chewing through them and destroy the ornamental time value of their host plants , dutifully exit behind chewed up leafage wherever they go . Thankfully , tortoise beetles are never around in great enough groups to bring down serious damage on your craw , so in the immense majority of fount you may simply brush aside them and enjoy their cool look .

Tortoise beetles have several built - in defensive features that work to keep them safe from predator . Their wing have develop hard out - plate which avail them to grip tightly to the surface of a leaf . These wing shells , or covers , also hide the bug ’s appendages , like a tortoise . Without arm or legs to grasp onto , these intemperately - shelled creatures are a challenge for predators .

The larvae of the tortoise mallet , which has a dark head and a dark-brown , chicken , or greenish body , has its own unparalleled defensive chemical mechanism to deter predator . Tortoise mallet larvae can paste together discard skin and feces with dust , to organise what is called an anal crotch , which is hold over the back half of the insect ’s body , screen its most vulnerable area from attack .

Identifying Golden Tortoise Beetles

halcyon tortoise beetles can be almost all atomic number 79 - color , crimson , or ruby - orangish . It can have smuggled or crimson marking on its back . Tortoise beetles have a attic - shaped body , similar to that of a ladybeetle , but when they are agitate or panic-struck , they can flatten out out their bodies , drawing closer to the foliage surface and cut across all of their outgrowth , similar to the way a tortoise will shroud from predator by rifle inside its shell .

The golden shininess of the tortoise beetle is eye - get , rather attractive , and can be damp , or altered at will by convert the moisture level near the aerofoil of its near translucent skin . The tortoise mallet change colors so as to coalesce in with its surroundings to hide from predators . The metallic - gold or gold - red insect can dull its metallic sheen , turn from atomic number 79 or red to a dull Brown University or green to hide in the foliage of the plant it is feed in on . When the tortoise beetle dies , the metallic gold color die with it , leaving a dull brown clay .

The Life Cycle of the Golden Tortoise Beetle

The life cycle of the golden tortoise mallet takes approximately 40 days to develop from an egg into an grownup mallet . Tortoise beetles are present all throughout the eastern United States , spreading west to about the middle of the rural area , as far as Iowa and Texas . There is not a wealth of biological noesis about the tortoise mallet , most potential because the damage that they visit on crops is chiefly decorative , and has little to no economic impact .

The bloodless , oval , drop eggs of the golden tortoise beetle can be encounter attached on the bottom of leaves or along the stems of host plant in clusters of around 20 . The midget , 1 mm long eggs hatching in just five to ten days .

The larvae of the tortoise beetle is quite unique - looking . The larvae are thick , but flatten and covered in spiny limb - like arms that jut out in every direction along the center of the larva . The larva are lily-livered , ruddy , brown , or reddish - chocolate-brown , with drear heads . Using its onetime cutis casts and faecal matter , the tortoise mallet larvae glue them together and create a protective structure make out as an anal retentive forking . The skin , debris , and feces shield is held in topographic point over the hard to defend back area of the larvae ’s body to keep predators from attacking them directly . Golden tortoise beetle larvae will grow somewhere between 14 and 21 days time .

Once the larvae has mature , it attaches itself to the foliage of the legion plant by its anal goal , then pupates . pupa are generally brown , with spines just like the larvae . Also like the larval form of the golden tortoise beetle , the pupae still carry around the anal retentive crotch made of faecal matter , old peel , and debris made during the larval period . pupa grow to five to eight millimeter long , develop from pupa to adult in just seven to 14 days .

grownup beetles are comparatively small , clock in at five to seven mm long . full-grown beetles can be different colours , but are typically either orange , blood-red - orange , or gold metallic . The header and the process of the grownup tortoise beetles are hidden for the most part , by the out shell . After a week or two , the adult egress and set about feeding during the last few week of summer .

Which Garden Plants Do Golden Tortoise Beetles Eat?

primarily linked to thesweet potato vineand its relatives , plant likemorning glory , and bindweed . Only plant from the sweet white potato vine family , also known as the Convolvulaceae family , can be boniface works . However , if you are bear a trouble with tortoise beetles , do not just remove all of your morning glorification vines and sweet potatoes . Once tortoise mallet are in your garden , they will find leaves to flow on , even if their favorites are rip up . Tortoise beetle also enjoy the foliage of zinnias , mallows , moolah , milkweed , eggplant , strawberry , raspberry , and corn plants .

How To Get Rid Of Golden Tortoise Beetles

Though chemical pesticides are a quick fix for golden tortoise beetle and many other garden pests , they often do more harm than good . Chemical pesticides can also harm the good insects that are present in your garden ’s ecosystem . good insects , like bee , parasitic wasps , lady beetle , are crucial parts of a thriving garden , responsible for for pollinating the harvest , and preventing garden pests .

Long term exposure to chemical pesticide can be harmful to humans as well , increase the risks of Parkinson ’s disease , depression , and dispirited spermatozoan numeration . Excessive pesticide exercise allows harmful chemicals to enter the water mesa , wreak havoc on the ecosystem , and defile our produce with neurotoxin . The most eco - friendly way to prevent garden pestilence is to find constituent methods for preventing and see to it pest problems .

preventive maneuver , such as keeping your garden free of mourning band , and ensure your plant are well - fed and well - water , will go a recollective manner towards deterring pests . Removing the favorable tortoise beetles by paw and break down them is the most effective treatment choice and the quickest and promiscuous way to address belittled infestations .

Another good constitutive treatment that will discourage tortoise beetles is a homemade neem oil spray treatment . If there are too many beetles for you to keep up with picking them off by hand , a diluted neem oil color atomizer may be the undecomposed answer . Simply desegregate two tablespoons of neem oil and one tablespoon of dish soap with one gallon of piddle . utilize a nebuliser bottleful to go for the mixed bag to areas where you see clustering of golden tortoise beetle , shaking the bottle once in a while to keep the oil from separating in the feeding bottle .

Continue to process stirred region for three to five straight days or until the pests are go . Spray the neem oil salmagundi on vines , stems and leaves , but stress to keep off spray directly on flowers so as not to drive away pollinators . utilize the spray late in the evening when bee are less active and when the sun is not around to dry the solvent up too quickly .

Though insecticides are only recommended for the most extreme plague and are rarely necessary , larvae and adult golden tortoise beetles are easy killed by spray residual insecticide , like permethrin , directly onto the leaves of affected plants .

Natural Enemies

There are several born enemy of the golden tortoise beetle that can be released to combat the pest in peculiarly difficult infestations to head off the employment of commercial insecticides . There are two insects that are known to attack adult golden tortoise beetle , a wasp known as Burks ( Tetrastichus cassidus ) and the Aldrich tent flap ( Eucelatoriopsis dimmocki ) . The tortoise beetle larvae ’s tegument and poop cuticle defense scheme do it as the anal forking is no couple for insects with longsighted piercing - suck mouthpart , and only really defends the larva from small predators with efficiency . Damsel bugs , shield bugs , assassin hemipteron , and several coinage of ladybird beetle can all be effectively used to vote out gold tortoise beetle larvae .

If you are seeing a golden tortoise mallet for the first prison term , take a little bit of time to take the specimen up tight . If it is all metallic gold , it is feeling calm and well . If it becomes stressed by sudden environmental change , it will shift colors . During juiceless conditions periods , it ’s metallic lustre will wither into an orange - bronze opalescence . aureate tortoise mallet can appear gold , red , brown , orange , bronze , and even unripe , and can be shiny , metallic , iridescent , translucent , or dull . Many also have black or red markings on their back as well . They are actually really neat once you take a few minutes to canvass them . It is a shame that they have to feed on the foliage of some of today ’s most commonly grown garden plants .