The Colorado potato beetle, a native American insect, has spread around the world since its discovery in 1824 on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in the Colorado-Nebraska area where it fed on a weed in the potato family. As pioneers moved westward, taking the cultivated potato with them, the insect shifted its feeding to potatoes. The insect has one, two, and occasionally three generations a year in the Northeast and overwinters in the adult or beetle stage. Both larva and adult of Colorado potato beetle are a major pest of potato and feed, also, on tomato, eggplant, tobacco, pepper, and many weed species.