cucumber beetle

noun

1. any leaf beetle of the genus Diabrotica and related genera that feeds on cucumbers and other plants of the gourd family and is a vector of cucurbit wilt.

Word History and Origins

Origin of cucumber beetle¹

An Americanism dating back to 1835–45

Example Sentences

Garden pests are often highly specialized and named after their favorite food: cabbageworm, corn earworm, tomato hornworm, Colorado potato beetle, cucumber beetle, pea weevil, pepper maggot, Mexican bean beetle, and so on.

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For example, the cucumber beetle can transmit bacterial wilt and squash mosaic virus, both serious plant diseases that will destroy a crop.

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A single colony of big brown bats in the American Midwest, by consuming 600,000 cucumber beetles in a year, prevents 33 million cucumber beetle larvae from feeding on the next year’s crop.

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He scouts regularly among his more than 2,000 tomato plants, a magnifying glass at the ready to spot small lesions that could be a sign of disease, or pests like the striped cucumber beetle, a perennial threat to his zucchini crop.

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You could also sow cucumber seeds, and they will mature in late summer and by so doing, outfox the cucumber beetle, the bringer of wilt.

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