page_title: Cockchafer
section_title: Life cycle
hierarchical_section_title: Cockchafer / Life cycle
caption_attribution_description: Beschreibung: Feldmaikäfer (Melolontha melolontha) / Weibchen Fotograf: Darkone, 8. Mai 2005
context_page_description: The cockchafer, colloquially called Maybug or doodlebug, is the name given to any of the European beetles of the genus Melolontha, in the family Scarabaeidae.
  Once abundant throughout Europe and a major pest in the periodical years of "mass flight", it had been nearly eradicated in the middle of the 20th century through extensive use of pesticides and has even been locally exterminated in many regions. However, since pest control was increasingly regulated in the 1980s, its numbers have started to grow again.
context_section_description: Adults appear at the end of April or in May and live for about five to seven weeks. After about two weeks, the female begins laying eggs, which she buries about 10 to 20 cm deep in the earth. She may do this several times until she has laid between 60 and 80 eggs. The common cockchafer lays its eggs in fields, whereas the Forest Cockchafer stays in the vicinity of the trees. The preferred food for adults is oak leaves, but they will also feed on conifer needles.
  The larvae, known as "white grubs" or "chafer grubs", hatch after four to six weeks. They feed on plant roots, for instance potato roots. The grubs develop in the earth for three to four years, in colder climates even five years, and grow continually to a size of about 4–5 cm, before they pupate in early autumn and develop into an adult cockchafer in six weeks.
  The cockchafer overwinters in the earth at depths between 20 and 100 cm. They work their way to the surface only in spring.
  Because of their long development time as larvae, cockchafers appear in a cycle of every three or four years; the years vary from region to region. There is a larger cycle of around 30 years superimposed, in which they occur (or rather, used to occur) in unusually high numbers (10,000s).
caption: Female
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