The three lined potato beetle (Lema trilineata) has been pushed out of the limelight by the colorado potato beetle, wich moved eastward from the Rockies in the 1850s. The larvae of these species do quite the job on cultivated potato, tomato and eggplant foliage. I grow none of those in my garden, and none of my neighbors do either. Lema trilineata prefers to feed on the flowering plant species of the Solanaceae family, which contains cultivars and edibles such as potato, pepper, tomato, as well as poisonous plants such as the nightshades. Since I have a fair amount of climbing nightshade in the yard, I can see why this beetle would be present. In the picture, Lema trilineata is resting on jewelweed leaves, but Solanum dulcamara is all over the place.
Lema trilineata Cummaquid July 2011
Leave a Reply