''Ophraella communa'', common name ragweed leaf beetle, is a species of beetles belonging to the family

Chrysomelidae The insects of the beetle family Chrysomelidae are commonly known as leaf beetles, and include over 37,000 (and probably at least 50,000) species in more than 2,500 genera, making up one of the largest and most commonly encountered of all beetle ...

Distribution

This species is native to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

(Canada, United States and Mexico) and it has been introduced in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, where it arrived in 2013.

Description

''Ophraella communa'' can reach a length of in males, of in females. The head is yellowish, with dark brown spots at the back. Body is coarsely punctured. Antennae are dark brown. Pronotum is yellowish or pale brown, with three black or dark brown spots. Elytra are yellowish or pale brown and show dark brown longitudinal stripes.LeSage L.
A taxonomic monograph of the Nearctic galerucine genus ''Ophraella'' Wilcox (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)
in Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Canada, vol. 133, 1986, pp. 3–75.

Biology

This species feeds almost exclusively (

oligophagy Oligophagy refers to the eating of only a few specific foods, and to monophagy when restricted to a single food source. The term is usually associated with insect dietary behaviour.Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

, tribe

Heliantheae The Heliantheae (sometimes called the sunflower tribe) are the third-largest tribe in the sunflower family (Asteraceae). With some 190 genera and nearly 2500 recognized species, only the tribes Senecioneae and Astereae are larger. The name is de ...

, e.g. sunflowers (''

Helianthus annuus The common sunflower (''Helianthus annuus'') is a large annual forb of the genus ''Helianthus'' grown as a crop for its edible oily seeds. Apart from cooking oil production, it is also used as livestock forage (as a meal or a silage plant), as b ...

'') and rough cockleburs (''

Xanthium strumarium ''Xanthium strumarium'' (rough cocklebur, clotbur, common cocklebur, large cocklebur, woolgarie bur) is a species of annual plants of the family Asteraceae. Some sources claim it originates in southern Europe and Asia, but has been extensively na ...

''), with a marked predilection for common ragweed (''

Ambrosia artemisiifolia ''Ambrosia artemisiifolia'', with the common names common ragweed, annual ragweed, and low ragweed, is a species of the genus '' Ambrosia'' native to regions of the Americas. Taxonomy The species name, ''artemisiifolia'', is given because the le ...

''), which is invasive in Europe and Asia.Zhenjun Cao, Hongyuan Wang, Ling Meng, Baoping Li: Risk to nontarget plants from ''Ophraella communa'' (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), a potential biological control agent of alien invasive weed ''Ambrosia artemisiifolia'' (Asteraceae) in China. In: Applied Entomology and Zoology, . The eggs are laid on the underside of young leaves of the host plants. The eggs are pear-shaped, with an hexagonal microsculpture. They are at first yellow, but quickly change their color to orange. Before the pupation, the beetles form cocoons on a leaf tip. Pupation lasts one to two weeks. After hatching, the adults remain on their host plants, but later they can migrate up to 25 km within one day.

References

Galerucinae Beetles described in 1986 {{Galerucinae-stub