Copper-Green Chafer

Anomala corpulenta

A night wanderer clad in copper-green armor

The copper-green chafer gleams with a metallic copper-green sheen, one of the most common leaf-eating beetles in North China Plain orchards. Adults hide by day and swarm at night to chew leaves of apple, poplar, and elm; the larvae are root-eating white grubs underground, damaging opposite ends of the tree.

Key figures

Length
About 19–21 mm, oval-bodied with a strongly domed back
Life cycle
One generation a year, overwintering as a larva in the soil
Habitat
Orchards, nurseries, roadside trees, and farmland shelterbelts
Diet
Adults chew leaves of fruit and shade trees; larvae feed on crop roots
Light attraction
Nocturnal with strong phototaxis; orchards often trap and kill them en masse with lights
Feigning death
When startled it tucks in its legs and drops to the ground playing dead, then flips over and crawls off moments later

Life cycle

Egg → Larva (white grub, overwinters in soil) → Pupa → Adult

Ecological role

Adults eat leaves and larvae eat roots, making it a year-round target for pest control in North China's fruit-growing regions; at the same time it is food for night-hunting insectivorous birds and hedgehogs, and light traps exploit its strong attraction to light as a control method.

Did you know

That copper-green color is not a pigment — it comes from light interference across layered microstructures in the cuticle, so the hue shifts with viewing angle, and even decades-old specimens rarely fade.

Range

North, northeast, east, and central China; the Korean Peninsula

Status

Common, a key leaf-eating pest targeted for control in North China orchards

Anatomy

Open the interactive 3D specimen