Having a bad infestation of these vermin this year. The first photo is a Longue D'Aout fig and the second photo is Triana.




 

Wow its the year of the bug. I have huge black ants that attack a fig. Those beetles are nasty looking bugs.

Oh Man I'm sorry Leon those beetles look merciless 

Those are June bugs. We used to tie a thread to a leg and let it fly in circles while we held the string...we didn't have cable or video games.

Hi Leon.
Sorry to see that. Try some beetle traps, I use Japanese beetle traps and they work pretty good.
Good luck.
Vito

Years ago, I used to see these bugs on the milk thistle flower, but never on fruit. They must have acquired a taste for figs. Im hoping that by using a special net you're able to keep them away. So far I did not see any in my yard in TX.

I found one on my figs, too, which met an untimely death.  But I later read that they only eat rotting fruit.  Any truth to that?

we have them too in Dalmatia. They eat matured fruit we leave for later harvest (for drying)

Hi,
why not take a bucket of warm water and shake the branch over.
Here, you can see some, and if you get rid of them, you're freed from them.
I get some but early in the year and by that time all they can feed on are the roses. They get in the flowers to eat pollen.
I'm not a smelling addict so I have no problem with them. If you like to put your nose in every flower ... better check twice before ...
Every now and then I like to check on the flowers ... "hoo such a beautiful flower..." and suddenly: "bheeeee " ... those things can scare and disgust one ...

Leon those guys look nasty,like something out of ancient Egypt!,maybe you should look up Cotinis mutabilisa recipes,get two crops for the price of one,I imagine they would make a nice crunchy fried snack,like fried corn :)

Perhaps chocolate covered, eh?

Tastes like chicken!

These guys are almost as big as chickens!

those bugs are in my backyard for the first time this year, identical to the picture, only attacking my rob's GN. They seem to not be interested in the other figs.

This morning I picked up every fig that dropped on the ground and every fig that was overly ripe on my trees. I probably captured close to 20 or 30 of these beetles in the process. After I cleaned up my small collection, there were beetles flying around and they could not find overly ripe figs to land on. It was nice to see them buzz off.

Leon, welcome to the club. I can send you as many as you need.  They will not buzz off for long. They also eat peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, bananas, etc.  1/4" bird net does a great job of keeping them out. !/2" mesh will keep out about 50%. If you have a few this year, you will have a lot more next year. You will find large white grubs in compost piles and rich soils, that are about 1-1/2" long.

Nick, be patient, they will find the rest.

Venturabananas, No. They will will eat nearly ripe fruit, as well.

These might force me to use permethrins or at least diatomaceous earth, insecticidal soap, neem oil, dawn or similar stuff.  They look awful!

These bugs stink like hell and I haven't seen any bird eating them.
Net is an option.
Pyrethrins, soaps, oils etc are contact insecticides and work in higher doses. 
If you decide on them I'd try to use them first and subsequently spray with acceptable stomach poisons like neem, baccilus thurgensis..

My main reason for having fruit trees is so that I can let the fruit get fully ripe on the tree for max sweetness, and those (green june beetles) attack my fruit just before I want to pick it.  I built a beetle trap from empty plastic bottles as show in this thread post. I baited it with 91% rubbing alcohol in a little bottle with a wick in it that I made.  It caught and drowned about 15 of them the first day, and only a couple the second day.  That must have been 95% of the beetles that knew about my tree because I only lost one or two figs to beetles after that.  They lay eggs in the soil but prefer compost or manure, so I'm worried that next year's population might be large, and I'll be removing my compost pile.  I'll make a few more traps this winter and be ready for them next summer.  BTW: earlier in the year they went after my peaches.  They attack any sweet ripe fruit with thin skin.

Buggers! I hope never to see such an infestation; bad enough we have to deal with Japanese Beetles and 4 legged mammalian vermin... 

Leon, this is the Japanese Beetle. Last year i had the same thing happen to my Kadota. I immediately took worm tea & sprayed my tree. They left & have not come back!

These beetles decimate trees in an instant!

(jdsfrance, great minds think alike).  Last year the June bugs were defoliating my raspberry bushes and I'd occasionally see them on the blackberry plants.  I went old school with them.  Every morning without fail and every few hours as time would permit I went out with my container of water with a little soap (to break the surface tension so they couldn't get out of the water) and knocked them into the water.  This year I saw only a few, but they got the same treatment.

CliffH.