Chrysochus auratus

The species is an iridescent blue-green with a metallic copper, golden or crimson shine. Dogbane beetles range from 8 to 11 mm in size, and they are oblong and convex shaped. The head contains two antennae that are widely set apart and located between the beetle's eyes. They are twelve-jointed with eleven segments, and the basal segment is shorter than that of the second segment.[2]

Apocynum cannabinum, the "dogbane" plant

Because the Dogbane's main source of food is dogbane leaves, they live in areas where this plant is abundant. This includes fields, forests, railroads etc. In turn, Dogbane beetles are also in these areas. However, the beetle cannot withstand all of the varied habitats like that of the Dogbane plant, so instead they are in places that are temperate and terrestrial while also containing the Dogbane plant. Dogbane beetles will live on the plant that they are eating. If the beetle depletes that resource, it may also move to another plant for both food and shelter.[3]

At least two regions of sympatry between C. auratus and Chrysochus cobaltinus have been documented in western North America.[4]

Dogbane beetles feed on plants in the Apocynum genus. Plants in this genus contain toxins (cardenolides) that, when ingested, are fatal to many organisms, including humans, causing cardiac arrest.[5] However, the Dogbane beetle is able to consume the plant and compartmentalize the cardenolides into glands. If threatened, the beetle can secrete the cardenolides as a defense mechanism.[6] It is believed that they can consume this plant without being poisoned because of their amino acid sequence. At position 122 of their amino acid sequence, Chrysochus auratus has a histidine, whereas their counterpart species who have an asparagine in this position are poisoned by it.[5]

Adult male and female dogbane beetles usually reproduce occurs everyday, about once each day. In this species, males are the picky of the two, and they will search for the fittest females to mate with. The way in which a male chooses which female is the most fit is via chemical signaling systems.[7] Dogbane beetles have notoriously low overall fitness, so the males have evolutionarily become more careful when choosing mates. Dogbane beetles use sex pheromones known as Cuticular Hydrocarbon signals to find which females are the fittest and which are not going to increase their direct fitness through procreation. [8] They are also known to be polygamous, and procreating often increases fecundity, and in turn fitness.[9] When the male has found a suitable mate, copulation begins. Copulation tends to occur earlier in the day and usually takes from an hour to an hour and a half, because the male perches himself on the female's back after insemination to make sure that she uses his sperm to fertilize her eggs and to keep other males away from the female. No parental care has been reported, except the fecal sac that she surrounds her eggs with when attaching them to the underside of the Dogbane leaf.

Females lay two or three eggs on the underside of dogbane leaves in the summer.[10] The eggs are kept in an adhesive cylindrical sac of the female's feces, that allows them to stay attached to the underside of the leaves. This also protects the eggs.[11] When an egg has hatched, a larva begins to eat through the fecal sac until it makes a hole large enough to exit from. Then the larva falls from the sac to the ground, where it begins to burrow until it finds Dogbane roots, which it eats until it pupates.[12] Dogbane beetles usually pupate in the spring. The larva pupates in a cavity under the soil until its body is matured and strong enough to dig back up to the surface. After pupation, the organism is an adult. The lifespan of this organism ranges from 40 to 60 days.[12]

• One gorgeous beetle: Dogbane leaf beetle, Chrysochus auratus Bug of the Week