{"id":5175,"date":"2025-07-05T17:25:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T17:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/?p=5175"},"modified":"2026-06-28T17:28:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T17:28:37","slug":"2025-07-the-return-of-the-white-spotted-rose-beetle-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/posts\/2025-07-the-return-of-the-white-spotted-rose-beetle-en\/","title":{"rendered":"The flower bulldozers: The dynamic return of the white-spotted rose beetle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The white-spotted rose beetle (<em>Oxythyrea funesta<\/em>) is a mid-sized scarab beetle (<em>Scarabaeidae<\/em>) found across Europe and the Middle East. While bees land gracefully on blooms, these beetles act like miniature bulldozers; they dive into light-colored flowers to consume pollen and nectar, but also greedily chew on the stamens, carpels, and petals, often destroying the blossom&#8217;s reproductive anatomy. Highly active during the day from spring through mid-summer, adults frequently mate directly on the flowers. Females lay their eggs in the soil, where the larvae spend up to two years feeding on decaying organic matter and roots before emerging. I observed a cluster of them clumsily maneuvering between blossoms on a sunny afternoon at my family\u2019s summer house by a lake in Poland. Interestingly, this species was once considered extinct within Poland, but due to shifting climate patterns, it has staged an incredible comeback and is now common throughout the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The white-spotted rose beetle (Oxythyrea funesta) is a mid-sized scarab beetle (Scarabaeidae) found across Europe and the Middle East. While [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"countries":[63,77],"order-category":[43,60,838],"class_list":["post-5175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phytophages-herbivores","countries-europe","countries-poland","order-category-insects-beetles","order-category-insects","order-category-insects-beetles-scarab-beetles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5182,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5175\/revisions\/5182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5175"},{"taxonomy":"countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/countries?post=5175"},{"taxonomy":"order-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/order-category?post=5175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}