Black-and-yellow cucumber beetle

Vegetable gardens, cucurbit crops, greenhouses, and surrounding vegetation, especially where cucumbers, squash, or melons grow.

Adults feed on cucurbit leaves, flowers, and sometimes fruit; larvae feed mainly on roots. They may transmit bacterial wilt and squash mosaic virus while feeding.

Adults are active in warm weather and often rest on leaf undersides or flowers; they overwinter in plant debris and produce several generations in favorable conditions.

They are damaging crop pests, causing leaf scars, weakened seedlings, and disease transmission. They provide limited food value for predators but no major direct benefit to cultivated plants.