Cetonia aurata

Cetonia aurata
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Coleoptera
Family:	Scarabaeidae
Genus:	Cetonia
Species:	C. aurata
Binomial name
Cetonia aurata (Linnaeus, 1758)
Subspecies[1]
Cetonia aurata aurata Linneaeus, 1761 Cetonia aurata pallida (Drury, 1770) Cetonia aurata pisana Heer, 1841 Cetonia aurata jingkelii Flutsch & Tauzin, 2009 Cetonia aurata pokornyi Rataj, 2000 Cetonia aurata sicula Aliquo, 1983 Cetonia aurata viridiventris Reitter, 1896

Cetonia aurata, called the rose chafer or the green rose chafer, is a beetle, 20 millimetres (3⁄4 in) long, that has a metallic structurally coloured green and a distinct V-shaped scutellum. The scutellum is the small V-shaped area between the wing cases; it may show several small, irregular, white lines and marks. The underside of the beetle has a coppery colour, and its upper side is sometimes bronze, copper, violet, blue/black, or grey.

Cetonia aurata should not be confused with the North American rose chafer, Macrodactylus subspinosus, or with the rarely seen noble chafer, Gnorimus nobilis, which is very similar to the rose chafer. One way to identify Cetonia aurata is to look at its scutellum; on the noble chafer the scutellum is an equilateral triangle, but on the rose chafer it is an isosceles triangle.