Courtesy Conn. Agric. Exp. Stn. 
Figure 116.—Birch leaf skeletonized by the rose 
chafer, Macrodactylus subspinosus. 
on several thousand hectares of young loblolly pines in southeastern North Car- 
olina. The base of the damaged needle usually survives, however, and the needle 
grows to about one-half its normal length. The winter is spent in the larval stage 6 
to 10 cm deep in the soil. Pupation occurs in the spring, and the adults emerge in 
June or earlier. Eggs are deposited in the soil near their pine hosts. Hatching occurs 
in 10 to 15 days and the larvae feed on the roots of various plants, including trees, 
until the onset of cold weather. There is one generation per year. 
Infestations of the pine chafer tend to occur in open pine stands and plantations. 
Numerous outbreaks have occurred in the Lake States and the South. The majority 
were short-lived and limited in size, but some outbreaks were quite extensive and 
lasted for several years. A. lucicola (F.) occurs from New England to the Lake 
States and Kentucky. It severely damaged larch seedlings in a nursery in New York. 
The Japanese beetle, Popillia japonica Newman, an introduced species first 
recorded in North America near Riverton, N.J., in 1916, now occurs in all or parts 
of at least 15 States from New Hampshire and Vermont to Georgia and Ohio (427). 
Spot infestations have also been recorded in many other States and in Ontario and 
Nova Scotia, Canada. The adult is broadly oval and nearly 12 mm long. The body 
is a bright, metallic green; the legs, a darker green; and the elytra, a coppery brown. 
There are two small tufts of white hairs just behind the wing covers and five patches 
of white hairs on each side. The wing covers are shorter than the abdomen. Full- 
grown larvae are about 25 mm long, typically grub-shaped, and have the last two 
rows of spines on the underside of the last abdominal segment arranged in the shape 
Oral Veue 
The Japanese beetle feeds on the foliage, flowers, and fruits of a wide variety of 
plants. It is present north of Florida, in most States east of the Mississippi River and 
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