Adults are approximately 12–18 mm long.
Fine-art photographic collection
Pygora erythroderes
A flower chafer whose red-bodied form became one colour extreme inside Madagascar’s extraordinary Pygora radiation.
About this species
Pygora erythroderes(Blanchard, 1842)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Pygora erythroderes is an endemic Madagascan flower chafer. The name refers to its reddish body areas, contrasted with darker and metallic surfaces used in the genus-level identification keys.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Coleoptera · Scarabaeidae · Cetoniinae · Pygora
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
MadagascarBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Madagascar
Forest, forest edge and flowering vegetation.
Adults active in daylight and warmth.
Sugary plant fluids as adults; decaying organic matter as larvae.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
The epithet erythroderes means “red-necked” or “red-skinned”, recording a body region whose intense colour is strong enough to define the species name rather than merely describe an individual variant.
Its identity is tested against a whole island radiation using the combined pattern of pronotal colour, elytral punctures, legs, pygidium and male genitalia — not by red colour alone.
The species was named in 1842, yet a complete modern framework for comparing it with the rest of Pygora did not arrive until Paulian’s dedicated 1994 Madagascar monograph.