''Colasposoma sellatum'' is a species of

leaf beetle The beetle family Chrysomelidae, commonly known as leaf beetles, includes over 37,000 (and probably at least 50,000) species in more than 2,500 genera, making it one of the largest and most commonly encountered of all beetle families. Numerous s ...

from

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, described by

Joseph Sugar Baly Joseph Sugar Baly (1816 – 27 March 1890) was an English medical doctor and entomologist. He described a number of species of beetle in the family Chrysomelidae. Baly was born in Warwick, first son of Joseph Baly. He studied at the local gramm ...

in 1878. In Australia, it is found around Darwin in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

, in the north-east of

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

and on the

Torres Strait Islands The Torres Strait Islands are an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their tot ...

. It is the only member of the genus ''

Colasposoma ''Colasposoma'' is a genus of leaf beetles in the subfamily Eumolpinae. It is known from Africa, Asia and Australia. '' C. sellatum'', ''C. auripenne'' (now known as '' C. viridicoeruleum'') and '' C. dauricum'' are known as pests of sweet potato ...

'' found in Australia, where it is known as a pest of

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its sizeable, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable, which is a staple food in parts of ...

es.

Description

Adults are between 6.2 and 9.2 mm in length, and are strongly metallic in appearance. They are generally coloured green or blue, rarely coppery or purple, though they frequently have a different colour along the elytral suture or lateral margins. The legs are black with metallic reflections. The basalmost segment of each antennae is usually black, or sometimes reddish-brown; the next five segments are reddish-brown and the last five are black. Larvae are white, with a body length of approximately 1.5 mm in the first

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'' 'form, likeness') is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, which occurs between each moult (''ecdysis'') until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to ...

, to approximately 12.0 mm in the fifth instar.

References

sellatum Beetles of Australia Beetles of Papua New Guinea Taxa named by Joseph Sugar Baly Beetles described in 1878 Agricultural pest insects {{Eumolpinae-stub