Talk:Figeater beetle

Some hints
Methinks the genus for this animal is Cotinis. Cotinus seems to be a plant (a smoke tree). Try a search for "cotinus" on ITIS!

The subfamily is Cetoniinae Leach 1815,.

Tribe: probably Cetoniini

Common names are not unique, there may be several species going by the same common name. The Green june beetle is Cotinis nitida. It is quite possible that there are several species that have similar characteristics. (See Cockchafer, which covers three species that are all very much alike.)

Consider making this an article on the genus Cotinis, subsuming all the Cotinis spp. Having one article for each and every species is probably too much. Alternatively, restrict the article only to the North-American species, like I did with Melolontha in Cockchafer, where I explicitly cover only the European species. Some of the species listed below live in Middle and South America only.

Partial list of species (from ):


 * Cotinis abdominalis Casey 1915
 * Cotinis columbica (Burmeister, 1842)
 * Cotinis impia (Fall) 1905
 * Cotinis mutabilis (Gory & Percheron) 1883
 * Cotinis nitida (Linnaeus) 1764
 * Cotinis orientalis
 * Cotinis pauperula Burmeister 1847
 * Cotinis punctatostriata Bates 1889
 * Cotinis subviolacea (Gory & Percheron) 1833

gives one more, C. nubilalis.

From we get C. boylei Goodrich 1966. The genus Cotinis is due to Burmeister 1842. And gives C. fuscopicea Goodrich and C. lebasi (Gory & Percheron). A search through the collections at for the genus Cotinis yields a few additional ones: C. antonii Dugés; C. laticornis Bates; C. olivia Bates; C. pueblensis Bates; C. viridicyanea Perbosc; and C. polita (Janson).

gives C. cavifrons Burmeister 1842 and the subspecies C. erythropus morelettii Blanchard 1850, but these two seem to have been reassigned to the genus Amithao Thomson 1878.

On C. mutabilis, there is public domain info in BISON (New Mexico) at.

Finally, why not ask a real expert and e-mail Brett Ratcliffe ?

Lupo 09:01, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Every species deserves a page
I disagree with the above idea to make this a page covering the entire Cotinis genus. A separate Cotinis overview page might not be a bad idea, though.Brian8710 23:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Mayate
Are these are the same beetles, called mayates in Spanish, that Central American children like to catch and tie strings to to "fly" them as though they were kites? 72.134.97.155 (talk) 10:18, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Clarification needed on tribes
Lupo writes that the tribe for these beetles is probably Cetoniini. However, Wikipedia's own page on flower chafers lists the Cotinis genus under the tribe Gymnetini rather than under Cetoniina Leach. Could an entomologist clean this up? I'm just an interested spectator who stumbled on this page when trying to find information on the green beetles making merry in my fig tree.

I did add the subfamily to this page since there seems to be no confusion there, plus a link to the flower chafers page. Valli Nagy 19:26, 7 September 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ValliNagy (talk • contribs)

Adding more information
I found some information that's related to the ecology of this species at this website and I was wondering how to go about integrating it into the main wikipedia article.

--Dreamwalker936 (talk) 03:22, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

"Not Destructive"
Everywhere I go online it says that this species is not considered a serious pest. Perhaps the adults do not do irreparable damage to fruit trees by robbing them of their fruit, but the larvae do great damage. They feed on decomposing material AND on the plant's fine feeder roots, favoring citrus and other fruit trees. I personally lost a mature orange tree, and younger lemon, lime, and loquat trees as well as a passion vine. The grubs worked their way consuming the feeder roots and the poor tree starves. The smaller the tree, the faster it's demise. I have many fruit grower club members share the same experience. I finally ripped out the source of food do the parents (grapes and fig). My only solace is that the grubs, having killed the above trees as well, will have no food.

Please stop perpetuating the idea that they are not seriously destructive. Thank you. Elizabeth Russell 2603:8000:4100:6400:B4C6:7FF2:6082:3DFE (talk) 07:14, 31 January 2023 (UTC)