Adults are commonly 20–35 mm long, with males much more heavily legged.
Fine-art photographic collection
Sagra buqueti
A jewel-like beetle whose males carry hind legs so enlarged that the femora can be broader than the body.
About this species
Frog-legged Leaf Beetle
Sagra buquetiLesson, 1831
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Sagra buqueti is a Southeast Asian leaf beetle famous for extreme male hind-leg enlargement and metallic structural colour. Its larvae develop in or around the stems and roots of climbing host plants.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Coleoptera · Chrysomelidae · Sagrinae · Sagra
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
Mainland Southeast Asia and parts of MalesiaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Mainland Southeast Asia and parts of Malesia
Warm forest edges and scrub with climbing vines and other host plants.
Adults climb vegetation and can fly strongly.
Leaves and plant tissues as adults; larvae feed within host stems or root-associated tissues.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
Male hind femora are grotesquely enlarged and armed with spines, producing one of the most extreme sex differences in any leaf beetle.
The blue, green, violet or copper sheen is structural rather than painted by ordinary pigment: microscopic surface architecture manipulates reflected light.
The life cycle changes scale completely — the glittering adult lives on foliage, while the grub develops concealed in plant tissue and constructs a protected cocoon for metamorphosis.