Summer chafer
On warm summer evenings this chafer swarms in numbers around treetops at dusk, sometimes drawn to house lights in surprising numbers.
| Where | Meadows, hedgerows and gardens |
|---|---|
| Size | 16 to 20 mm body length |
| When | June to July |
The summer chafer is a reddish brown beetle with a hairy body and fine ridged wing cases, similar to the much larger cockchafer but with a more rounded rather than pointed tip to the abdomen.
Adults fly at dusk in early summer, gathering in swarms around the tops of trees and shrubs to mate, and are often drawn to artificial light. Females lay eggs in the soil, and the root-feeding larvae take a few years to develop before becoming adults.
Traits
Habitat
Garden
Colour
Brown
Active
Night
To people
Sometimes flies into homes at dusk drawn by lights; harmless to handle and does not bite or sting.
Activity through the year
Often confused with
Much larger at about 25 to 30 mm, with a pointed rather than rounded tip to the abdomen.
Questions
Is the Summer chafer dangerous to people?
Sometimes flies into homes at dusk drawn by lights; harmless to handle and does not bite or sting.
When can you see the Summer chafer?
The Summer chafer can be seen from June to July, at night.
Plate retouched from a photo by Francisco Welter-Schultes, CC0, Wikimedia Commons Licence
Report a mistake in this entry
Last updated 2026-09-26. Every entry is checked against published sources.