Loveliness of Ladybirds

Aren’t ladybirds one of the loveliest little creatures. Here in New Zealand they are often called ladybugs, however they can also be called lady beetles or ladybird beetles. The offical name for this family of beetles is Coccinellidae beetles.

One of the fascinating things I found out about ladybugs recently is that a group of them is called a loveliness! So when you see several of these wee beetles together you have a loveliness of ladybirds.

Ladybirds are particularly hungry creatures, a single beetle can eat approximately 5,000 aphids in it’s one year life span, other undesirable pests they enjoy are mites, whitefly and thrips.

Ladybirds/ladybugs aren’t actually bugs, they are beetles – bugs typically have liquid diets and beetles eat other insects. There is also a variety that eats fungi, which isn’t liquid or an insect, they are “eukaryotes,” which means they have cells, fungi are most similar to animals in their structure.

“The key difference between bugs and beetles is that bugs are a type of insect group that belong to the order Hemiptera while beetles are a type of insect group that belong to the order Coleoptera.

Insects are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates. They are the largest group in the phylum Arthropoda. They usually have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body, three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes and one pair of antennae. This group consists of more than a million species and normally represent more than half of all living organisms. Insects are divided into 25 orders. Hemiptera is an order classifying bugs. Coleopter is the largest order classifying the beetles. Bugs and beetles are two types of insects.”

To read the rest of this article from differencebetween.com click here.

Ladybirds are pretty good at warding off attackers, their bright colours deter predators and they are also very good and playing dead and emitting a scent that would be assailants don’t like.

Some other fun facts are that they have special organs on their feet that help them smell and their antennae help with taste and touch which makes up for what they lack in the eyesight department.

Not all ladybirds are cute innocuous pest eating beetles.

The Harlequin ladybird (Harmonia axyridis) is the worlds most invasive ladybird, this ladybird eats pests but is also a danger to our native ladybirds. This beetle is present throughout the North Island and has now been spotted throughout many regions in the South Island too. 

This picture is of one type of Harlequin ladybird that is quite common along with the yellow beetle with black spots, however there are many more varieties. Click here for pictures of them all so you know what to look out for.

“Adult harlequin ladybirds may be red or orange with zero to 21 black spots. They may be all black or black with four or two orange or red spots. Most individuals have white on the pronotum (first segment behind the head). The black spots on the pronotum usually form an ‘M’ shape when seen from the top and looking forward. One consistent feature is that the legs are reddish-brown.”

“The biosecurity staff of the Ministry for Primary Industries having been work hard to figure out how far it’s already spread. Unfortunately, it’s sounding like it’s already beyond eradication. That would be bad news for NZ ladybirds as the Harlequin ladybird, an Asian native species, has reached high densities in Europe and North America and displaced their native ladybirds.”

If you see a Harlequin ladybird or it’s larva you can contact NZ Ladybird Watch and report it. They also collect data on other ladybird species so they can assess whether the Harlequin out-competes our native ladybirds like it’s done overseas.

This is the link to report ladybirds NZ Ladybird Watch.