Taxonomy
Melolontha melolontha showing its black head, hairy body and reddish-brown wing cases. © Darkone, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Unported license
Morphology
The adult cockchafer beetle
- is about 25-30mm long
- has short feelers on its black head
- has a hairy body
- has non-hairy reddish-brown wing cases (when seen with the naked eye)
Lookalike
Melolontha melolontha has a similar-looking but smaller relative that appears later in the year called the summer chafer, Amphimallon solstitialis. On average, summer chafers are about 13mm long, half the size of cockchafers.
This beetle also has a hairy body under reddish-brown wing cases but has long, sparsely arranged hairs (when seen with a hand lens or magnifying glass).
Taxonomy
Melolontha melolontha (Fabricus, 1775)
Empire Eukaryota
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Arthropoda
Class Insecta
Order Coleoptera
Family Scarabaeidae
Subfamily Melolonthinae
Genus Melolontha
Species melolontha
