''Pachnoda marginata'' is a beetle from the subfamily

Cetoniinae Flower chafers are a group of scarab beetles, comprising the subfamily Cetoniinae. Many species are diurnal and visit flowers for pollen and nectar, or to browse on the petals. Some species also feed on fruit. The group is also called fruit an ...

with a large number of subspecies that lives in west and central

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. They are sometimes used as food for

terrarium A terrarium (plural: terraria or terrariums) is usually a sealable glass container containing soil and plants that can be opened for maintenance to access the plants inside; however, terraria can also be open to the atmosphere. Terraria are ofte ...

animals. The adult beetles are 20–30 mm, the

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

e are very small when they hatch, but can grow as long as 60 mm. (2.36 in.) It is commonly called the sun beetle.

Description

The sun beetle comes in nine subspecies, the three common ones are: ''Pachnoda marginata aurantia'', ''Pachnoda marginata marginata'', ''Pachnoda marginata peregrina'', with ranging colors. ''Pachnoda marginata aurantia'' comes from orange to a yellow-orange, some having a hue gradient towards the middle seen in diagram below. ''Pachnoda marginata marginata'' normally is red or crimson with little change between individuals. ''Pachnoda marginata peregrina'', the more common amongst the subspecies, is a pale yellow or orange with brown spots; one spot being on 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 ...

and two spots on each

elytra An elytron (; ; , ) is a modified, hardened forewing of beetles (Coleoptera), though a few of the true bugs (Hemiptera) such as the family Schizopteridae are extremely similar; in true bugs, the forewings are called hemelytra (sometimes alterna ...

on each wing. Sometimes the spots on the elytra are almost unnoticeable, as they seem to blend in with the rest of the body, this can be seen in the picture on the bottom left of ''Pachnoda marginata peregrina'' in the

under " As pets". The larvae of the pachnoda can sometimes make a low snore-like noise when making their cocoons.

List of the described subspecies

Life cycle

After mating, the female lays an

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

in moist ground, which hatches after a short time into a

that feeds voraciously for 2 to 5 months. When the

has matured, it

pupa A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...

tes for several weeks, and then transforms into an adult beetle. It will live as an adult for several months. Not all larvae survive pupation, many die before molting into pupa form.

As pets

''Pachnoda marginata'' is an easy beetle to keep, requiring a

with a lid (as it can fly out), a layer of moist ground, something to climb on, a warming lamp and food like

bananas A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

apples An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

and other

fruits In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particula ...

. The

also eat leaves and other plant waste. It is important to not mix coniferous material in the substrate for these

beetles Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

as it may harm the larvae.

Gallery

File:Sun beetle.svg, ''Pachnoda marginata peregrina'' File:Pachnoda marginata marginata.svg, ''Pachnoda marginata marginata'' File:Pachnoda marginata aurantia.svg, ''Pachnoda marginata aurantia'' File:Scarabaeidae - Pachnoda marginata aurantia.JPG, ''Pachnoda marginata aurantia'' from

Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ) ...

. Male and female. Mounted specimen Image:Taxicab Beetles 001.jpg, Colour variation in ''P. marginata'' Image:Kongo Rosenkäfer Pachnoda marginata lessnoise.jpg File:Pachnoda marginata.jpg, Beetles in terrarium feeding on a slice of banana.

References

* 1. Rigout (J.), 1989,

The Beetles of the World ''The Beetles of the World'' is a series of books devoted to Coleopterology. Sciences Nat published the 24 first volumes; the following volumes and the supplements were published by Hillside Books, Canterbury. The first book authored by Jacques Ri ...

, volume 9,

Sciences Nat Sciences Nat was the academic publisher specialising in entomology of the Societé Sciences Nat. The society was established in 1971 and based in the rue de la Mare in Paris. Three years later it moved to the rue des Alouettes and later to Venet ...

, Venette

* 2. Rigout (J.), 1992,

, volume 12,

, Venette

External links

Pachnoda marginata aurantia
photos at Beetlespace.wz.cz

photos at Beetlespace.wz.cz

photos at Beetlespace.wz.cz {{Taxonbar, from=Q390499 Cetoniinae Beetles of Africa