The false potato beetle (sometimes horsenettle beetle), Leptinotarsa juncta, is a beetle found primarily in the Mid-Atlantic and southeastern regions of the United States. Recently, it has also been discovered in the northeastern portion of Ohio as well.
On June, 10, 2012 the False Potato Beetle was identified in Morris County New Jersey, thus confirming the Northern migration of the species.
Adult beetles emerge from the soil in the late spring or early summer and begin breeding, and a population may go through one to three generations in a summer.
The false potato beetle feeds on solanaceous weeds, such as horsenettle, Solanum carolinense. It also feeds on other solanaceous plants, such as species of ground cherry or husk tomato, Physalis spp., and bittersweet, Solanum dulcamara, but no growth and reproduction occurs when feeding on the potato, Solanum tuberosum.
L. juncta can be easily confused with its close cousin the Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata. While the adult false potato beetle has alternating black and white strips on its back, just like the Colorado potato beetle, one of the white strips in the center of each wing cover is missing and replaced by a light brown strip. The eggs are slightly larger and fewer are found in a cluster. The hump-backed larva is similar, but with only one row of dark spots on each side.
The two species, L. juncta and L. decemlineata, can be found on the same solanaceous host plants but are apparently incapable of crossbreeding. Of the two, only the Colorado potato beetle is a serious pest.
Famous quotes containing the words false, potato and/or beetle:
“Every white man in this country has been raised with a false sense of power.”
—Roxanne Dunbar (1938)
“The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.”
—Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
“The sense of death is most in apprehension,
And the poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)