Red Milkweed Beetle
Tetraopes tetrophthalmus
Red Milkweed Beetle · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 12 July 2025
A Red Milkweed Beetle on a milkweed in the July border, red with black spots and antennae nearly twice its own body length. It lives only on milkweed, across the eastern United States, as both larva and adult, and a milkweed patch in July always has a few.
A specialist through and through, it takes up the plant's toxins the same way the Monarch does, with the same warning colours to show for it. The Latin name, tetrophthalmus, means four-eyed - each eye is split in two by the base of the antenna.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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