- "I caught a fruit beetle! Orange you glad I did?!"
The Fruit Beetle, Mimela splendens, is a common bug found on trees all day, between the months of July and September. It can be sold for 100 Bells.
Museum[]
An information board in the bug exhibit will provide information about this bug.
"The fruit beetle has a brilliant-green-colored body and tends to hang around fruit trees. They have a hard outer wing casing and lift this casing when they need to fly using their thin wings. The larvae of fruit beetles feed on decaying vegetable debris and plant roots."
In real life[]
The Green Fruit Beetle, also known as the Figeater Beetle and Junebug, is a type of beetle that lives primarily in the southwestern United States and Mexico. The larvae, commonly called “Crawly Backs", grow up to 5 cm and are thick and white with a dark head. They have six small, ineffectual legs—to move, they roll onto their backs and propel themselves upside down, using the stiff dark hairs on their backs to gain traction instead. At rest, they curl into a firm C shape. Adult beetles grow to approximately 3 cm. They are a dull green on the top and a brilliant iridescent green on the underside and legs. They are active during daylight hours, often congregating in the shade of trees near choice breeding grounds to find mates. They make a loud buzzing sound similar to that of carpenter bees.
These beetles are fond of sweet tree sap, and will also chew into nectar-filled flowers and feed on a variety of fruit, making them a pest. Although they can be found feeding on many types of bird-damaged and over-ripened fruit, they are only able to chew into and damage softer, thin-skinned cultivated fruits like figs, peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums, grapes and native fruits like those of Saguaros and Cactus Apples.