Ladybug Facts

Ladybug Profile

Beetles are the most diverse order of insects, and make up around 40% of all insect species so far discovered. That’s 25% of all animal species! More than enough to keep an animal blogger in business for a few more decades alone, hopefully. 

Among the most recognisable beetles are the ladybugs, the classic danger-mushroom-coloured insects that come out in the summer and keep the pests off your melons. But contrary to the name, they’re not at all ladylike, nor are they truly bugs. 

The English name “Ladybird” isn’t a whole lot more useful, either, despite the family, Coccinellidae, sounding a lot like a shocked East London exclamation. 

Ladybug Facts Overview

Ladybugs, or ladybirds, are voracious predatory beetles and can wipe out entire villages of some of our most annoying crop pests without breaking a sweat (they don’t have sweat glands) and do it while looking a bit like a tiny cow. 

But they don’t all look like that, either. Some are tiny, dark assassins, others are bright yellow and eat mildew. But most don’t; most are cold-blooded killers.

Interesting Ladybug Facts

1. They’re not birds! 

Ladybugs, or ladybirds, are so-named because in Britain they were once called “Our Lady’s Birds” after the fact that some first-century Jewish woman supposedly wore a red cloak in Nazareth a couple of thousand years ago. 

When the Americans got hold of the name, they were immediately smart enough to recognise that these little insects looked nothing like bids, and it became “ladybug”. 

Yet, this wonderfully astute modification still upsets the most pedantic of entomologists, because they’re ‘ackshually’ beetles, not bugs. 

The current, politically correct term for them is one that sounds uncomfortably like a pubic infestation: “ladybeetles”, and maybe now we can address the glaring error in the prefix. 

2. They have a lot of close relatives. 

Ladybugs are like those families you sometimes meet who’ve had eight children for three generations and each member has an army of cousins all over the place. 

Beetles in general are a bit like this, and the ladybug family sits in the infraorder Cucujiformia, which houses such greats as the weevils and longhorn beetles, and, in fact, most of the plant-eating beetles. 

Their superfamily (the next taxonomic rank down from the infraorder, sometimes – take it up with the taxonomists) is Coccinelloiodia, and it has tens of thousands of species alone. 

Within this superfamily are the bark beetles, the fungus beetles and their wealthier cousins, the handsome fungus beetles, which are the ladybug’s closest relatives.

Even within the ladybug family, there are over 6000 species, and while most of their relatives are busy munching on plant juices and fibres, or various fungal growths, ladybugs have taken the path of the orca, rejecting their tens of thousands of vegan relatives to become a solitary family of rampaging murderers. 

3. Spider mite destroyers

Everyone knows the classic red and black-spotted ladybug. The seven-spot ladybug is one of the most recognisable of them all and is the one that gave the family its name. But they don’t all look like this. 

One genus of ladybug, the Stethorus, are tiny, black beetles who, though domed like all in the family, don’t otherwise look anything like Our Lady’s Birds. 

These are the spider mite destroyers, and as the name suggests, they are chaotic slaughterers of spider mites, to the point where you think they’re just doing it because they enjoy it. They don’t just eat spider mites, they destroy them.

They could be only 1mm long, yet gobble down up to 75 mites per day. Great for protecting your corn! ¹

4. They’re voracious 

This bloodlust is clearly a family trait, and almost all species in the Coccinellidae pillage, destroy, and otherwise, upset waves of inferior animals before the sun has even reached its peak. 

There is a handful of genera in this family who don’t spend their days just killin’ for fun. The Microphagous lines eat mildew off plants and are in fact called to the rescue by plants to do so. 

The twenty-spotted ladybird responds to chemical cues from a plant under attack by mildew and hurries over to protect it. By murdering all the mildew.

But back to the real slayers, the largest species can really do some damage to local aphid populations. 

Aphids (which ‘ackshually’ are bugs) sit around getting all plump and sugary on plant sap and are one of the most common favourites of large ladybugs. A marauding reaper like this will make desperate orphans of countless such bugs, consuming up to 5,000 adults in their lifetimes. 

And they start young. ²

5. Their larvae are awesome

Unlike the grovelling, burrowing, maggoty offspring of most of their relatives, these beetles sire precocious, formidable, and entirely furious juveniles who pick up with the murderous destruction from the get-go. 

Upon hatching, ladybug larvae are immediately dangerous, and despite measuring no more than half a millimetre, set to work picking off any animal weaker than they are. 

These leathery, sometimes purple creatures resemble miniscule predatory lizards, and behave a lot like them, too. In the four weeks it takes to get big enough to pupate, this baby smiter has eviscerated 400 aphid scum.

While the vast majority of their infraorder are destroyers of plants, these beetles are sworn to protect them. ³

6. They’re great at pest control

So, as you can imagine, they make very affordable pest control for farmers. Even the vegetarian ladybugs feed on plant pests, and they don’t even ask for payment. 

Ladybugs are so happy killing that they will do it for free. They only get upset when they run out of victims, at which point they’ll embark on some surprisingly long journeys to find more. 

7. They migrate 

When battle is scarce, they open their intricately folded wings and buzz off. Usually, this is a short distance, to the next hapless aphid village, but if the local area isn’t putting out, they can embark on far longer migrations. 

During these passages, ladybugs will fly up into the air columns and allow themselves to be dropped on an entirely random and very unlucky population of plant pests somewhere else. 

8. But they can be a pest themselves

Harlequin ladybugs are an Asian species that has invaded various places in Europe and the US and is not the commonest species in some of the countries there. As a result of their incredible appetite for violence, they’re threatening local species by making them look bad and eating all their food. ⁴

9. Their knees leak

These insects have enough of a reputation to keep most predators at bay, but if the occasional aggressive idiot comes sniffing around, they have a backup plan.

When threatened, they secrete a strong-smelling haemolymph that apparently tastes bad enough to put any would-be attacker off. This is essentially blood, and it’s pressed out through the joints in the beetle’s armoured legs. 

There are a few spiders and birds who can handle it, but for most, this beetle is far too spicy to eat. ⁵

Ladybug Fact-File Summary

Scientific Classification

1. (2022), “Predatory Beetles : Mite-eating lady and Scymnus beetles”, Hortsense.
2. Jun Tabata (2011), “Olfactory Cues from Plants Infected by Powdery Mildew Guide Foraging by a Mycophagous Ladybird Beetle”, NIH.
3.  Jamie Hopkinson (2018), “Identifying the larvae of common ladybird species”, The Beatsheet.
4. Lewis Smith (2015), “Harlequin ladybirds declared UK’s fastest invading species”, The Guardian.
5. “Ladybugs Defense”, iNaturalist.