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The Wild Harvest Digest: August 2026, #4

Good Morning Neighbors,

This week I am not featuring any plants, well at least not directly. In today’s post I’m going to cover a pest of a very specific crop, the Figeater Beetle. #Fig #FigBeetle #Natural
This type of Beetle is also known as the Green Fruit Beetle or the Fig Beetle and it can easily be mistaken for the June Beetle (Coninis nitida) or sometimes the Japanese Beetle (Popillia japonica) which is no less voracious. The Fig beetle (Cotinis mutabilis) is a member of the Scarab Beetle family (Scarabaeidae) and its main habitat is in the southwestern United States which includes California, Mexico and into northern South America. As always, nature is illiterate and can’t read what I just wrote and so we get them here in the North Carolina. Fig Beetles are fairly large by beetle standard in North America as they are ¾ to 1 1/3 inches long, they are smooth bodied and lack any hairs like the related Japanese beetle. Fig Beetles will generally appear as Metallic Green with brown or tan areas along the margins of the wing covers over the abdomen. On the head of this beetle is a horn-like projection called a Clypeal Horn. The larva of this Beetle are commonly called grubs and are a dirty white or brownish colored and can be up to two inches long. They mainly live underground and feed on organic matter, the roots of plants and other organic detritus. There are four life stages for a Fig Beetle, egg larva pupa and the adult stage. In North Carolina, the adults mate white wrecking your fruit, then the females lay eggs beneath the surface of organic matter such as compost piles, lawn clippings, organic mulch and manure. The eggs hatch in about a week and they feed on rotting organic matter and develop through three instars where they basically turn into a bigger grub. In spring of the next year the larva mature and pupate in a cell made of soil particles. The adults emerge in late spring if not early summer and can be active through early fall if there are ample food sources. There is only one generation per year for Fig Beetles, and this is something you can exploit for controlling them. Fig Beetles in Cumberland county start to appear on fig bushes in mid to late summer and can persist as long as there is fruit. Once the fruit is gone so too are they and potentially there goes a bunch of your harvest. The good news is that these hungry pests are only after your fruit and do no damage to otherwise to your fig bushes. In 2026, the Fig Beetles were much more numerous because of the drought and then sudden rains we got caused a mass-emergence of them but also which caused fruit to swell and burst during rainy periods which was like ringing a dinner bell for the beetles. Why do they go after figs though? Well this is because their mandibles are not strong enough to break into fruits with harder skins and as such they can also attack Peaches, Grapes, Pears and Tomatoes. Also those weak mandibles mean that Fig Beetles cannot break your skin if they bite you, they aren’t even aggressive if you disturb them. A Fig Beetle makes a lot of noise when flying but they are no danger to a human. Interestingly even with soft skinned fruit such as Figs, these Beetles prefer to go after pre-damaged fruit; this will include fruit that has swollen and burst, fruit that is damaged by birds, and fruit that is already damaged by other insects. If a Fig Beetle cannot locate already damaged fruit they have a structure on their head called a Clypeal horn that can be used to tear the skin of soft fruit so they can get at the flesh inside. The interesting thing though is that a little cultural care can make sure they are reduced in number right off. Fig Beetles are attracted to the scents of ripening and fermenting fruit, the former you can do nothing about but the latter is something you can change. Fruit at 70 degrees Fahrenheit can start fermenting in as little as two days, so when you add already ripe fruit and a bunch of summer rain you get the equivalent to the bat signal but for fig beetles. As an extra for cultural care, I often will pick over ripe, damaged, bad fruit.. and toss it in the compost or if that’s not practical throw it at least ten or more feet away from any nearby fig bush. Damaged fruit that say has been lightly pecked by a bird is harvested as normal but cleaned thoroughly and used in cooked fig recipes. This limits chance that fig beetles can trace it back to the source and gets me more figs in the long run. Now let’s take a look at these critters biology beyond the basics that I covered. Fig Beetles are diurnal which means they are chiefly active during the day. Unlike a lot of insects Fig Beetles are endothermic, meaning they generate their own body heat internally. They do this by generating heat metabolically by using their flight muscles. Even when the Fig Beetle is at rest and not out in the sun they can keep their body temperature at about 53.6 degrees Fahrenheit (12 Celsius) and when in fight in a range of 86 to 107.6 Fahrenheit (30-42 Celsius). It has to be mentioned that Fig Beetles are pretty clumsy in flight, they steer poorly mainly due to aerodynamics and will collide with you or other things. If this happens you can just brush them off you and move on. The color of the Fig Beetle is also interesting, that metallic Iridescence is due to light reflecting structures in the cuticle of the Beetle’s body. The cuticle in this case is the waxy outer shell of an insect, it exists to keep the insect’s moisture in, and to keep the bad stuff out. The Fig Beetle helicoidal fibrous chitin protein lamellae which are called Bouligand Structures that selectively reflect left-handed polarized light resulting in that green metallic color you see. Fig Beetles do have at least one natural enemy, the Fungus Metarrhizium anisophiae has no common name and attacks the Beetle during the third larval instar killing it. This fungus is considered a parasitoid of at least two-hundred of insect species. It’s so good at what it does it has been used to control Termites, Thrips, Mosquitoes, Roaches and Red Fire Ants. [Author's Note: This is a picture of the White Ischia and Chicago Hardy/Celeste harvest before the Beetles showed up.] The down side is that it has also been found to be a pathogen of Reptiles, but research continues and in the meanwhile you can use BT (Bacillus thuringiensis), a soil-dwelling bacterium to control populations but you have to make sure it’s the right one. A few sources suggest using BT galleriae which is in products like Beetle Gone for killing the grubs of beetles specifically. As an end note, it’s been known that Fig Beetle body parts have been used in human jewelry production since ACE 50 to 500 by the Ancient Pueblo People. At least two necklaces have been recovered from the Bear Ears Monument in Utah that date back to 70-60 BCE which suggests even older uses of the beetles by humans. So that’s Fig Beetles in short, they’re an interesting pest at my Fig Orchard that is causing interesting problems that aren’t dangerous enough to do anything more than cultural care for. Most of the time Insecticides are overkill and have unintended effects that go beyond the crisis you see.
August 28, 2026 at 12:58 AM