By Professor Helen Roy

Published: Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 12:00 am

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There are 47 species of ladybird currently resident in Britain. There have been a few new arrivals over the last few decades including the large and brightly coloured bryony and harlequin ladybird but also a few of the tiny and so-called inconspicuous ladybirds.

There are thousands of ladybird species worldwide with recent studies suggesting there are more than 6000.

Ladybirds can be distinguished from other beetle families by taking a close look at a few characteristics. Ladybirds have more or less clubbed antennae that usually have 11 segments. The antennae are quite short particularly in contrast to leaf beetles that can look very similar to ladybirds but have long antennae. Ladybirds also have short legs extruding from their oval or round bodies.

If you take a very close look you would notice that the ends of the legs (the tarsi) bear two claws and usually have four segments but the third segment is very small so often they seem to only have three segmented tarsi.

Ladybirds are often brightly coloured and strikingly patterned beetles but this is not always the case. Some ladybirds are tiny, brown and slightly hairy. The colour patterns of many of the so-called conspicuous ladybirds can be highly variable and spot number can be an unreliable characteristic for identification when used alone.

However, by looking at leg colour or the markings on the plate behind the head (the pronotum) it is possible to identify most insects with relative ease.

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What is the ladybird life cycle?

Ladybirds, like butterflies, undergo complete metamorphosis. That is their life cycle comprises a pupal stage, in which the grub-like larva transforms into the adult beetle.

In Britain, adult ladybirds spend the winter months in a dormant state. In spring as the weather gets warmer and the days longer the ladybirds begin to stir. At first they feed on a variety of high-energy foods including pollen and nectar but also they begin to seek out their favourite foods too. In some cases that’s aphids or scale insects and for other ladybirds its plants or mildew. They then begin to pair up and mate.

Ladybird eggs, bright yellow ovoid structures, are often seen from March and throughout the summer months. These hatch after a few days to a week into tiny little larvae.

These larvae will go through four stages, increasing dramatically in size, before pupating. The new generation adults appear from April or May onwards depending on the weather. The time taken for a ladybird to complete its life cycle is dependent on the temperature. The warmer it is the faster the development of the ladybirds.

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