Click a picture to see a larger view.
Here is a collection of photos trying to illustrate the life cycle of this beautiful beetle (15-21mm long).
Please visit the Colchester Natural History Museum, or contact me if you would like a 2008 survey form, or poster.
Links:
References:
Contact: Maria Fremlin.
Last updated August 23 2008.
All photos were taken in Colchester, Essex, CO3 3AT, UK, which seems to have an interesting hot-spot for rose chafers.
Indeed the results of the 2007 Colchester Rose Chafer Survey seem to indicate that at present Colchester records are the only ones for the whole of Essex, see Species account, Essex Field Club.
You may also you may enter your records directly in the Essex Field Club, for that all you have to do is to visit
http://www.essexfieldclub.org.uk/portal/p/rose+chafer+survey, click on logon, and then follow the instructions.
All records of imagos, larvae, and null ones will be very appreciated.
LA CÉTOINE DORÉE (Cetonia aurata)! (Coléoptère Cetoniidae) - A very informative page by André Lequet who has followed the whole life cycle and is showing pictures of their eggs.
Wikipedia page for Rose Chafer.
How to sex Cetonid larvae - Interesting photos of the terminal ampullae (Herold organ), by Serge Mallet.
Cetonia aurata semiochemical, Pherobase. They do smell very strongly when distressed. Now we know that it probably is anethole.
Dung Beetles and Chafers (Scarabaeoidea), 2nd ed., L. Jessop, 1987.
Collins Complete British Insects (Collins) by Michael Chinery.
Insecta: Coleoptera, Scarabaeida Larvae, Haruo Tashiro, Soil Biology Guide, Edited by Daniel L. Dindal, 1990. Click here and here for a couple of large pdf files.
Know Your Chafers, Maria Fremlin, Nature in North-East Essex, 2008, [PDF].