Habitats

Most ladybugs are beneficial to gardeners in general. In the Spring, you'd usually find a ladybug in a vegetable garden feeding on aphids.

Ladybugs are usually found where aphids or scale insects are, and they lay their eggs near their prey, to increase the likelihood the larvae will find the prey easily. Since aphids and scale insects occur nearly everywhere in the world, ladybugs are also cosmopolitan.

Thirteen-Spotted Lady Beetle

The Thirteen-spotted Lady Beetle is quite elongate (4.5 to 6.4 mm or approximately ¼ in.) and boasts thirteen irregular spots on an orange background. The spots sometimes merge, so it might be hard to make a clear count.

LadyBird Anatomy

Ladybirds have a protective covering over their wings called 'elytra'. When ladybirds fly, the 'elytra opens up to allow movement of the wings. When it is still, the 'elytra' closes up.

The head of a ladybird is very tiny, although the females head is larger than the males. The head is so tiny, it can sometimes be mistaken for the 'pronotum'.

Like all insects, ladybirds have 6 jointed legs, arranged each side in 3 pairs, 2 antennea, an exoskeleton which is made from 'chitin' - a strong protein that is similar to what makes our hair and nails.

They have a 3 part body made up of head, thorax and abdomen.
If you look closely at the top of the Ladybird you will probably have thought the large black section on top of the body is it's head, but it's head is on top of it's pronotum!

Ladybird Life Cycle

Most Ladybirds mate in the spring or summer, and the female lays a cluster of eggs as near as possible to an aphid colony.

In most species these eggs hatch into a larval state within a week. This state lasts 10-15 days, and they then go into a pupal stage before becoming an adult Ladybird.

The entire life cycle of the Ladybird is only 4-7 weeks.

Ladybirds lay extra infertile eggs with the fertile eggs. These appear to provide a backup food source for the larvae when they hatch. The ratio of infertile to fertile eggs increases with scarcity of food at the time of egg laying.

There are 4 stages : egg ----larvae----pupa-----adult

The female ladybird lays many tiny eggs in an aphid colony - the fertilization of the eggs is performed inside of the ladybird. In the spring a ladybird can lay up to 300 eggs in one time.

The larvae then hatches from the tiny eggs. The larvae has 6 legs and is a long shape. As the larvae grows rapidly, it sheds its' skin several times. When it reaches full size, it attaches itself to the stem of a plant .

The larval skin then splits down the back exposing the pupa.
The pupa is the size of an adult ladybird but it is all wrapped up at this stage of the metamorphosis.

The wrapping protects the pupa while it undergoes the final stages of metamorphosis into the adult stage. This last stage only takes a few days.