''Eurydema oleracea'' is a species of shield bug in the family Pentatomidae and is commonly known as the rape bug, the crucifer shield bug, the cabbage bug or the brassica bug.Brickfield's Park
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specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''oleracea'' means "related to vegetables/herbs" in Latin and is a form of ().

Morphology and biology

The rape bug has a shiny, flat dark-colored body about long and wide. The species has a dark ground colour which is overlain with red, yellow, cream, white or orange markings. There is an oval spot on the top of the mesonotum and one on each of the elytra as well as a longitudinal stripe on the prothorax. In young adults these spots are yellow but change to white or red in older bugs. The colour of the abdomen changes at the same time from buff to black. Such age-specific changes in the imago coloration, are connected with sexual maturation of the bugs and often take place in diapausing imagos at the time they are becoming active again.Mikhailov V.K. 1949. Sub-imaginal phase of wing stage and the secondary atypical pigmentation of cuticle in Cabbage bug, Eurydema oleraceum L. In: Reports of Acad. Sci. USSR. V. 64 (6): 877-880 (in Russian). The eggs are cylindrical, buff-colored with a dark pattern. They are laid on the stems and inflorescences of host plants in batches usually of about twelve eggs in two neat rows. Each female lays sixty to eighty eggs over a period of four to six weeks. The nymph is pale gray with a dark-brown pronotum and spots on the dorsal side of the abdomen. It moults five times, and the adults and nymphs live quite openly on plants. Adults overwinter, hibernating in leaf debris at the edge of woods or in bushes.AgroAtlas
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Distribution

This species has a wide distribution in the eastern Palearctic realm. It is found in Western Europe except for northern Scandinavia, Kazakhstan, most of Russia, the mountainous regions of west and central Asia, and in North Africa.

Ecology

These species overwinters as an adult, emerging in late spring. There is one generation in the northern part of their range and two in the south. The adults and nymphs are consumers of a wide range of cruciferous plants ( Brassicaceae), feeding mainly on the flowering parts. Among cultivated crops the bugs damage

cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...

, radish, turnip, rutabaga, horseradish and rape. They can also develop on many species of wild cruciferous plants. Natural enemies include a number of species of

parasitoid In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host (biology), host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionarily stable str ...

wasps in the family

Scelionidae The hymenopteran family Scelionidae is a very large cosmopolitan group (over 3000 described species in some 176 genera) of exclusively parasitoid wasps, mostly small (0.5–10 mm), often black, often highly sculptured, with (typically) elbowe ...

, some species of predatory bugs in the family Nabidae, a rare parasitic fly ''

Clytiomya continua ''Clytiomya continua'' is a European species of fly in the family Tachinidae. Hosts for the parasitoid larvae include ''Coreus marginatus orientalis'', '' Eurygaster testudinaria'', ''Eurydema gebleri'', ''Eurydema dominulus'', ''Graphosoma rubr ...

'', some spiders and ants. They can be controlled by crop rotation, the destruction of cruciferous weeds and the use of

insecticide Insecticides are substances used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and by consumers. Insecticides are claimed to b ...

Gallery

File:Gluvia4.jpg, ''

Gluvia dorsalis ''Gluvia'' is a genus of daesiid camel spiders, first described by Carl Ludwig Koch in 1842. It only has two species, ''Gluvia dorsalis'' and ''Gluvia brunnea'', the only two species of solifugid found in Portugal and Spain. ''Gluvia dorsalis'' ...

'' eating a ''Eurydema oleracea'' File:Eurydema oleracea RF.jpg, Mating pair File:Pentatomidae - Eurydema oleracea (nymph).jpg, Nymph File: IMG 0741 pluskwiak.jpg, Adult

References

External links