Ladybird

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A ladybrid sitting on a wooden beam.
There are over 5,000 different species of ladybird across the world all with a variety of different names such as lady beetles and ladybugs. They have many different visual appearances most familiar being the seven-spotted red-and-black ladybird. Most ladybirds have dome-shaped, oval bodies and, species dependent, can have spots, stripes or no markings at all. The bright colours of ladybird's act as a defence mechanism warning other animals from eating them as it displays that they taste disgusting and if they are threatened they secrete a yellow oily fluid from the joints in their legs.

The scientific name for a ladybird is Coccinellidae septempunctata and they are in the insect classification. Their lifespan is typically around one year with some living for a maximum of two years. They are surprisingly quick for their size as they are only around 1 cm long by can fly up to 24 km per hour. They live just about anywhere, thanks to their carnivorous diet, just like in grasslands, cities, river beds and suburbs and their range is every continent bar Antarctica. They act as pest controllers on many farms as they can eat 5000 aphids in their year-long lifetime.

A group of ladybirds ladybirdsgetty-13556ea.jpg
When reproducing, ladybirds lay their eggs on the underside of a leaf in rows or clusters, usually where aphids have gathered so they have a food source. It takes the larvae a few days to emerge after they've been laid and after they grow quickly and shed their skin several times. Once the larvae have developed into full size, they then attach to a leaf by their tails and form a 'pupa' and then after a couple of weeks the pupa becomes an adult ladybird.




One species of ladybird, the harlequin ladybird (Harmonia axyridis), pose a threat to the UK's native ladybird. One main reason for this is because the harlequin ladybirds have a more prominent appetite which means hey easily outcompete native ladybirds for food. Its taken the harlequin ladybird less than a decade to spread through the UK after being introduced from Asia to North America in the 1980s as a form of pest control to eat aphids. The ladybird then spread across the US and then arrived in the UK in 2004. It is thought this happened accidentally by a strong wind blowing them to the UK from North America or Europe.


















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