During the night they go crazy! They are big (they can reach 40mm) and noisy when they fly! You can check them out in the end of the post, in our video!
The name polyphylla comes from the Greek poly (πολύ) and phylla (φύλλο – φύλλα (plural)). Poly means “many, a lot) and phylla means “leaves”.
You can find the adults on leaves (or under like in our foto, when they want to have babies!) and their larvae are usually in the roots. The adults occur between June and August and make 25-40 eggs.
The larvae needs 3-4 years to reach the adult phase and this means, that all these years being in roots, they can cause quite some damage. There are papers mentioning, that they damage chestnut and vineyards for example (you can find them in the bibliography).
They prefer sandy areas, the like pines and vineyards (like the one at the foto!) and the adults eat leaves.
If you wanna check one more beautiful Apollon video, check out this sweet bee that visited us at Apollon, Naxos!
Try not to use pesticides. There are several natural ways to fight, what you need to fight.
In general keeping the environment clean and healthy keeps us all, including insects and bees happy!
Bibliography
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphylla_fullo
- https://greek_greek.en-academic.com/155106/σκαραβαίος
- https://www.ukbeetles.co.uk/polyphylla-fullo
- https://similarbutdifferentanimals.com/2022/03/25/polyphylla-fullo-beetle/amp/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4535486/
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272006257_Evaluation_of_entomopathogenic_nematodes_and_their_combined_application_against_Curculio_elephas_and_Polyphylla_fullo_larvae
Yannis and Stella @Apollon, Naxos 