Cute and clumsy. The charming, but alarmingly large, cockchafer spends late spring sensing for the perfect mate with its fanned antennae. Spot them in woodland clearings or bumping into lit windows in late spring.
Common names: cockchafer beetle, May bug, common cockchafer
Scientific name: Melolontha melolontha
Family: Scarabaeidae
Habitat: parks and gardens, meadows, agricultural fields
Predators: rooks and other birds feed on the larvae
Origin: native
Adults: cockchafer beetles are large and bulky, growing up to 30mm in length. It has characteristic fanned antennae, a black body, and brown legs and wingcases. Their undersides are covered with fine white hairs. Males have seven ‘feathers’ to each antennae while females have six.
Larvae: are large yellow-white grubs with light brown heads.
Credit: Ray Wilson / Alamy Stock Photo
Adults: eat flowers and leaves, rarely to a destructive level in the UK.
Larvae: are considered an agricultural pest when in large numbers, as they feed on vegetable and grass roots.
Adult cockchafers only live for six weeks, using this time to search for a mate. Females lay their eggs in the soil and, once hatched, the larvae spend between three and five years growing underground.
Credit: Hans Christoph Kappel / naturepl.com
Cockchafer beetles live in a wide range of habitats. However, they prefer fields, meadows and grassland for their larvae to develop in.
The adult beetles emerge and are active between May and July. They have a very loud flight, so be sure to keep an ear out around woodland edges and in parkland.
On the wing, they are large and ungainly and can cause quite a stir. You might even notice one bumping into a lit window in urban areas.
Credit: Frank Hecker / Alamy Stock Photo
The use of pesticides harmed numbers of cockchafers in the UK in the 20th century. Numbers are now recovering.
