''Myochrous denticollis'', the southern corn leaf beetle, is a species of leaf beetle. It is found in

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and

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. It is a crop pest, and has been reported to damage corn in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. Adults are about 3/16 inch long and about a third as wide. They are colored dark brown and often covered with bits of soil. The

thorax The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the cre ...

has three "teeth" on each lateral edge, after which the species is named ( is

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for "toothed-collar"). The beetles drop from their food plants to the ground and hide when they are disturbed, making them difficult to find. Southern corn leaf beetles

overwinter Overwintering is the process by which some organisms pass through or wait out the winter season, or pass through that period of the year when "winter" conditions (cold or sub-zero temperatures, ice, snow, limited food supplies) make normal activi ...

as adults beneath the soil and plant debris and in clumps of some species of weeds. The adults emerge again in early spring, to feed on young weed hosts such as

cocklebur ''Xanthium'' (cocklebur) is a genus of flowering plants in the tribe Heliantheae within the family Asteraceae, native to the Americas and eastern Asia and some parts of south Asia . Description Cockleburs are coarse, herbaceous annual plants ...

smartweed ''Polygonum'' is a genus of about 130 species of flowering plant in the buckwheat and knotweed family Polygonaceae. Common names include knotweed and knotgrass (though the common names may refer more broadly to plants from Polygonaceae). In the ...

, and crabgrass as well as early-planted corn.

Gallery

File:The southern corn leaf-beetle (1915) (14782485172).jpg, A corn plant completely destroyed by the southern corn leaf beetle (1915)

Gallery

References

Further reading