What Is the Life Cycle of Click Beetles? Egg to Wireworm

Sam Fielding Beetles 2025-03-18 Clear, practical insect guides

What is the life cycle of click beetles? It runs through four stages, egg, larva, pupa, and adult, and the larval stage alone typically lasts three to four years underground. Click beetles belong to the family Elateridae, named for the audible snap they make when they flip themselves right-side up. That snap comes from the flexible union of the prothorax, mesothorax, and a prosternal spine, which releases stored energy in a sudden motion.

What Click Beetles Look Like

Elateridae is one of the larger beetle families, with thousands of species found on every continent except Antarctica. Adults have elongated, somewhat flattened bodies with a tapered, shield-shaped thorax that narrows toward the head. Body length ranges from a few millimeters in the smallest species to several centimeters in some tropical click beetles. Coloring runs from dull brown and black to species with metallic sheens or, in a handful of tropical genera, bioluminescent spots.

Adults are mostly active at night and are drawn to porch lights and windows in mid to late summer, which is when most people notice them indoors. Adult click beetles feed on nectar and pollen and do not bite, sting, or damage plants; the larvae, not the adults, are the ones that cause crop injury.

Egg, Larva, Pupa, Adult: The Four Stages

Click beetles undergo complete metamorphosis, the same four-stage pattern used by beetles, moths, and flies.

1. Egg

Females lay eggs singly or in small clusters just below the soil surface or in decaying wood, favoring moist ground near plant roots where hatching larvae will have food close by. A single female can lay several dozen to a few hundred eggs over her lifetime. Eggs hatch in one to several weeks depending on soil temperature and moisture.

2. Larva (Wireworm)

The larvae are called wireworms for their slender, hard, wire-like bodies, usually yellowish to reddish-brown with three pairs of short legs near the head. This is the longest stage of the life cycle by far. Wireworms typically spend about three to four years in the soil before pupating. During that time they molt repeatedly, adding an instar each time they shed their exoskeleton.

Wireworms feed on seeds, roots, and underground stems, and several species are serious agricultural pests. Wireworms hollow out corn kernels, sever small roots, and tunnel into potato tubers, damage that opens the door to fungal and bacterial rot. Home gardeners most often meet them chewing through root vegetables like carrots and potatoes.

3. Pupa

Once a wireworm reaches full size, it forms a small earthen cell in the soil and pupates, usually in late summer or fall. The pupal stage is comparatively brief, typically a few weeks, though it can stretch longer if temperatures drop. Inside the pupal case, larval tissue is reorganized into adult structures: wings, compound eyes, and reproductive organs.

4. Adult

Newly emerged adults are pale and soft-bodied at first, hardening and darkening over a few days. Many species overwinter as adults in the soil or leaf litter and emerge the following spring to mate. Adult lifespan is typically a few weeks to a few months, most of it spent searching for mates rather than feeding heavily.

The click itself does double duty: it rights a beetle that lands on its back, since the flat body and short legs make a normal push-up impossible, and it launches the beetle into the air with enough force to startle a bird or spider mid-attack.

Wireworms as Pests, and What Gardeners Can Do

Because wireworms live for years underground before becoming beetles, an infestation can persist in a garden bed or field long after the adults have moved on. Crop rotation away from grasses and cereals, tilling in fall to expose larvae to cold and predators, and baiting with buried pieces of potato or carrot to trap and remove wireworms are standard, non-chemical controls used in home gardens and small farms.

A Few More Details Worth Knowing

Range: Click beetles live in forests, grasslands, gardens, and farmland across temperate and tropical regions worldwide.
Bioluminescence: A small number of tropical Elateridae, mostly in the genus Pyrophorus, glow from light organs on the thorax; most North American species do not glow at all.
Predators: Birds, spiders, and other predatory insects eat adult click beetles, particularly while they are flying or resting on foliage.
Soil role: By tunneling and feeding on decaying roots and organic matter, wireworms and adult beetles both contribute to turning over soil and recycling nutrients.

Sources

Written by

Sam Fielding

I got curious about insects the way people get curious about anything: one question led to another and I never stopped reading. Project Insect is where I write up what the entomology literature and extension guides actually say, in plain language, with an honest verdict and the odd defense of wasps, who get a worse reputation than they deserve.