Mango Flower Beetle (Protaetia fusca)

Scientific Name:
In the scientific world, this insect is known as Protaetia fusca. In English, they are generally called mango flower beetles or mango flower eating beetles.
Family and Genus:
According to the classification of the animal kingdom, this belongs to the family Scarabaeidae of the order Coleoptera and the subfamily Cetoniinae. It is a species of the genus Protaetia.

Origin and Habitat:
They are basically native insects of tropical and subtropical Asia and Australia. But later through human transportation and trade, their spread has occurred in various islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans besides Florida and the Caribbean region as well.

Food:
The adult beetles are trophic generalists or omnivorous in nature, which eat by collecting juice and nutrition from flowers and fruits of various trees including mango, lemon, fig, corn, and rose. Besides, their role is also seen in the pollination of sesame and sunflower flowers. On the other hand, their larvae or grubs eat rotten organic matter and compost manure instead of live roots.

Reproduction:
They lay eggs in rotten organic garbage, compost, or manured soil. In favorable environments, larvae hatch from the eggs and grow up by eating rotten leaves and organic matter to transform into fully grown beetles.

Benefits:
They work as natural helpers in making decomposable organic waste or compost in nature and in causing pollination of some plants like sesame and sunflower.

Harmful Aspects:
If they increase in excessive numbers, by eating flowers and fruits of mango, litchi, or various fruits, sometimes they become known as minor insect pests or harmful crop pests in agricultural fields.

I learned about them from various sites including iNaturalist, Wikipedia and Google.

_{​(All posts are written in Bengali and translated into English using Google Translate.)}

Camera Used	Samsung SM-G973F
F-Stop	F2.4
ISO speed	ISO
Focal length	26mm
Flash	No
Editing app	Lightroom
Photography	(Protaetia fusca)
Photographer	@mshbd
Location	Natore, Bangladesh