Bug FAQOrnate Checkered Beetle
Trichodes ornatus · Order: Coleoptera · Family: Cleridae
Also called: Common Checkered Beetle
The ornate checkered beetle lives in North America and adults eat yellow-flowered plants such as yarrow and milkweed. Its larvae develop inside bee nests, where they feed on bee larvae or pollen.
Source: Wikipedia
How to recognize it
Trichodes ornatus, called the ornate checkered beetle, belongs to the checkered beetle family Cleridae and is found only in North America.
Source: Wikipedia
Size
Males are 5 to 11 mm long and females are 7 to 15 mm long.
Source: Wikipedia
Where it lives
The species occurs only in North America.
Source: Wikipedia
What it eats
Larvae live in bee nests and eat bee larvae or pollen; adults feed on yellow-colored plants like yarrow and milkweed.
Source: Wikipedia
Life cycle
The beetle’s larvae develop parasitically in bee nests, then emerge as adults that feed on flowering plants.
Source: Wikipedia
Where it comes from
Its range is limited to North America.
Source: Wikipedia
Where it is found in the US
Recorded in 17 of 51 states and DC. Most records: California, Colorado, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Montana.
Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.
Source: GBIF
Status: native in North America; native in Canada; native in United States. Source: iNaturalist
Months it is reported in the US
Source: GBIF
More photos
Questions people ask
Are they a problem for gardens?
Adults feed on yellow-flowered plants, but the evidence does not say they damage crops or gardens.
Source: Wikipedia
Same family (Cleridae)
Sources
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichodes_ornatus
Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · ITIS · Wikipedia
Text written 2026-10-22 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-22.