Site by Geoffrey Bazuin

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylym: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Family: Scarabaeidae
Genus: Popillia
Species: japonica
(insectidentification.org)

Distinguishing Features

The adult Japanese beetle is about 10 mm long and about 6 mm wide.  It has a green metallic head and a metallic copper-brown wing covering.  The coverings have parallel striations running from front to back.  There are five little white tuffs of hair (setae) along the sides of the abdomen and two on the back (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2009).  One characteristic I found interesting (that is common among scarab beetles) is the lamellae at the end of the antennae (Fox, 2001).  The Japanese beetle is often confused with the Sand Chafer (Strigoderma arbicola) which is also known as the false Japanese beetle.  

Japanese Beetle (Popillia japonica)

false Japanese Beetle aka the sand chafer (Strigoderma arbicola)