- Lifespan
- 2–3 years
- Size & Weight
- 8–12 mm in length
- Habitat
- Grasslands, woodland edges, hedgerows, and rough ground where bird's-foot trefoil and other legumes are abundant.
- UK Distribution
- Found throughout much of southern and central England, Wales, and southern Scotland; absent from northern Scotland and parts of northern England. Resident year-round.
- Diet
- Herbivorous; feeds on the leaves of bird's-foot trefoil, clover, and other low-growing legumes.
- Predators
- Ground beetles, spiders, shrews, and some birds such as thrushes and robins; the reflex bleeding deters some but not all predators.
- Mating Season
- May to July
- Breeding
- Females lay clusters of elongated eggs in soil near host plants in summer; larvae are gregarious, feed communally on legumes, and pupate in autumn or early spring; single generation per year.
- Behaviour
- Slow-moving diurnal beetle that is often found crawling through vegetation. When threatened, it exudes bright red or orange alkaloid-rich haemolymph ('blood') from the mouth and joints as a chemical defence, a behaviour that gives the species its distinctive common name.