Alder Leaf Beetle

Agelastica alni

Agelastica alni, the alder leaf beetle, is a species of leaf beetle in the genus Agelastica. Agelastica alni is distributed in Europe, the Caucasuses, Siberia, north-eastern Kazakhstan, and in the 19th century was introduced to the USA.
Alder leaf beetle Leaf beetles working on their family expansion Dutch name: Elzenhaantjes (Agelastica Alni) Agelastica alni,Geotagged,The Netherlands

Appearance

The alder leaf beetle is a relatively small beetle, around 6–7 mm, black or metallic blue in colour. The larvae are normally black.
Agelastica alni - Almost black Shot this individual a few weeks back - almost entirely black to the eye, whereas this species normally is clearly blue. Difficult to capture the subtleties of the dark colour properly... Agelastica,Agelastica alni,Alder leaf beetle,Chrysomelidae,Galerucinae,Jane's garden,Melanism,Sermylini,nl: Elzenhaantje

Status

Previously rare, and considered extinct in the UK, since being found in Manchester in 2004 it appears to be on the increase in the North West of England. The beetle and the beetle's larvae host on the grey or speckled alder and to a lesser extent black alder, but will be found on hazel, birch and/or hornbeam if there is a shortage of food. Causing large holes and gaps from the end of April onwards, which are produced by the larvae in the first two stages, but the main damage is only produced by larvae in the third stage.

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderColeoptera
FamilyChrysomelidae
GenusAgelastica
SpeciesA. alni
Photographed in
Belgium
Netherlands