Approximately 18–25 mm long.
Fine-art photographic collection
Euchilia puncticollis
A nineteenth-century Madagascan discovery whose armour is engraved, striped and colour-shifting.
About this species
Euchilia puncticollisWaterhouse, 1878
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Euchilia puncticollis is an endemic Madagascan flower chafer described from material newly added to the British Museum in 1878. The original diagnosis records a densely sculptured, strongly striped beetle with contrasting metallic and red areas.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Coleoptera · Scarabaeidae · Cetoniinae · Euchilia
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
MadagascarBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Madagascar
Forest and forest-edge habitats where adult flower chafers seek fruit, sap and blossoms.
Warm-season adult, active on vegetation.
Sugary plant fluids as an adult; decomposing organic material as a larva.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
Waterhouse’s original Latin diagnosis describes a bronze-green beetle varied with red, with the head and pronotum heavily punctured and the elytra cut by deep longitudinal striae rather than left smooth.
The species entered science through a consignment of Madagascan beetles newly acquired by the British Museum in 1878, so the modern name is tied directly to a surviving nineteenth-century collection event.
Its colour pattern is laid over strongly three-dimensional sculpture: dense pits and raised elytral intervals break reflected light into separate metallic planes, making the surface change character with viewing angle.