The Colorado potato beetle has developed resistance to many insecticides used for its control, including imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid compound. New generation neonicotinoids have been deployed to control Colorado potato beetle including thiamethoxam and acetamiprid. A key point in the strategies of resistance management is the monitoring of resistance and cross-resistance. In the summer of 2003, adults of Colorado potato beetle from Long Island, NY were bioassayed with imidacloprid and nine neonicotinoids, and nicotine in topical applications. To compare the resistant strain we used a susceptible strain reared at the USDA laboratory at New Jersey. The Long Island beetles expressed 309 fold resistance to imidacloprid, and different levels of cross-resistance spectra to other neonicotinoids: 59-fold to dinotefuran, 33-fold to chlothianidin, 29-fold to acetamiprid, 28-fold to N-methyl thiamethoxam, 25-fold to thiacloprid, 15-fold to thiamethoxam, 10-fold to nitenpyram, but only 2-fold to nicotine.

In other studies (Mota-Sanchez et al. 2002), susceptible and resistant Colorado potato beetles strains showed only slow metabolic conversion of imidacloprid. The olefine analog being the single major metabolite formed. The Long Island beetles were also cross-resistant to the olefine analog which was considerable less toxic than the parent imidacloprid.