Pea aphid

Acyrthosiphon pisum · The pea aphid is a tiny sap-sucking insect that feeds worldwide on legumes such as peas, clover, alfalfa, and broad beans.

Pea aphid
Photo: Jpeccoud, CC BY 3.0
Pea aphid
Photo: Andy Murray, CC BY-SA 2.0
Pea aphid
Photo: Clemson University - USDA Cooperative Extension Slide Series, / © Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 us

Taxonomy

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderHemiptera
FamilyAphididae
GenusAcyrthosiphon
SpeciesAcyrthosiphon pisum

Where it lives

Clover, alfalfa and bean fields worldwide; originally from Eurasia.

Fun facts

  • When a colony gets too crowded, some females sprout wings and fly off to start new colonies on other plants.
  • Some pea aphids can make their own red pigment, torulene, using genes borrowed from fungi long ago.
  • A pea aphid cannot live without its bacterial partner Buchnera aphidicola, and the bacterium can't survive without the aphid either.
  • Unlike most insects, the pea aphid's genome is missing many of the genes normally needed to fight off infections.

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Facts and taxonomy adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).