Historedia
Episode 1 of 1

Formal Description

When
1824
Where
Philadelphia
Part of
Thomas Say first describes the Colorado potato beetle

Thomas Say formally described the Colorado potato beetle in 1824, establishing its scientific identity in American Entomology.

Say published his descriptions in Philadelphia in 1824. The beetle was discovered in the Rocky Mountains, likely native to the area between Colorado and northern Mexico. This formal description preceded the beetle's later agricultural impact on potato crops.

Sources

  1. Colorado potato beetle Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-14
  2. Thomas Say Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-29

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.