Red cabbage bug

Eurydema ornata · Order: Hemiptera · Family: Pentatomidae

Damages trees, gardens or crops. It feeds on cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, cress and radish, so it can damage garden crops.

Source: Wikipedia

Red cabbage bug
Photo: Jonas V., CC BY

The red cabbage bug is a small shield bug about 7 to 8 mm long with gray or bright red body and black markings, sometimes showing white and yellow-green patches. It lives in open areas with low vegetation across Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia, overwinters as an adult, and the nymphs are pale yellow-orange with dark markings. It sucks sap from cruciferous plants, making it a garden pest for cabbage, cress, radish and related crops.

Source: Wikipedia

How to recognize it

The bug’s body is gray or bright red with black markings; sometimes the red patches appear white or yellow-green.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

It measures about 7 to 8 mm (0.28 to 0.31 in) in length.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it lives

It prefers open habitats with low vegetation.

Source: Wikipedia

Life cycle

Adults survive the winter; the nymphs are pale yellow-orange with a dark pronotum and dorsal abdominal markings.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it comes from

It occurs in Europe, North Africa, and southern and western Asia.

Source: Wikipedia

Lookalikes

It is also known as the red cabbage bug and belongs to the shield-bug tribe Strachiini of the Palaearctic and Oriental realms.

Source: Wikipedia

More photos

Red cabbage bug photo 3
Photo: Dr. Guido Bohne, CC BY-SA

Questions people ask

Can it damage my garden vegetables?

Yes, it feeds on the sap of cabbage, cress, radish and other cruciferous crops, which can harm those plants.

Source: Wikipedia

Where is this bug usually found?

It lives in open areas with low vegetation across Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia.

Source: Wikipedia

Same family (Pentatomidae)

Brown Marmorated Stink BugBrown Marmorated Stink BugHalyomorpha halysDamages trees, gardens or cropsGreen Stink BugGreen Stink BugChinavia hilarisDamages trees, gardens or cropsHarlequin BugHarlequin BugMurgantia histrionicaDamages trees, gardens or cropsBrown Stink BugBrown Stink BugEuschistus servusDamages trees, gardens or cropsGreen Shield BugGreen Shield BugPalomena prasinaEuropean Striped Shield BugEuropean Striped Shield BugGraphosoma italicum

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurydema_ornata

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-22 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-22.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

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