Photo by Drees. Photo by Drees. A west Texas species, Cysteodemus armatus LeConte, has wing covers that are broadly oval and convex, colored black with bluish or purplish highlights. Winter is spent in later larval stages and pupation occurs in the spring. The pupal stage lasts about 2 weeks and adults appear in early summer.
Female beetles lay clusters of eggs in the soil.
Once there, the larva develops through a number of stages, each with progressively reduced appendages and increasingly grub-like in appearance. Generally, one generation occurs per year although some develop in 35 to 50 days while in others, development takes 3 years. Mouthparts are for chewing. Blister beetle species feed on flowers and foliage of a wide variety of crops including alfalfa, ornamental plants, potatoes, soybeans, garden vegetables and other plants. Immature stages feed on grasshopper eggs, live in solitary bee hives or are predaceous, depending on species.