It is a serious pest of potatoes and other solanaceous plants. The family Chrysomelidae, or leaf beetles, is one of the seven largest families of Coleoptera.
All members are phytophagous, both as larvae and as adults.
Some feed on roots, others on stems or leaves of herbaceous plants, and some mine the leaves of woody plants. They belong to the subfamily Chrysomelinae represented by over 2,000 species distributed throughout the world. Most larvae of the Chrysomelinae live openly on plants while feeding, and they usually burrow into soil to pupate. Many economically important species are found in this subfamily. The Colorado potato beetle was first discovered by Thomas Nuttal in 1811 and described in 1824 by Thomas Say from specimens collected in the Rocky Mountains on buffalo-bur, Solanum rostratum Ramur.