Dogbane Leaf Beetle
Chrysochus auratus
Dogbane Leaf Beetle · Staten Island · 5 July 2026
A Dogbane Leaf Beetle on Staten Island, a beetle of meadows and roadsides across eastern North America, and only ever found on the plant it is named for.
The colour shifts between green, gold and copper depending on the angle - not pigment but structural colour, light interfering off microscopic layers in the cuticle the way it does on a soap bubble. Dogbane's milky, mildly toxic sap is what the beetle feeds on and likely keeps for its own defence, the same strategy Monarchs use with milkweed.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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