Harmonia exhibits a wide range of colors and spot patterns. Adults are strongly oval and convex, about 6 mm long, and 5 mm wide. North American populations have a mix of individuals ranging in color from pale yellow-orange to bright red-orange, with or without black spots on the wing covers. The head, antennae, and mouthparts are generally straw-yellow but are sometimes tinged with black. The pronotum is similarly straw-yellow with up to 5 black spots or with lateral spots usually joined to form 2 curved lines, an M-shaped mark, or a solid trapezoid. The wing covers are generally yellow-orange in unspotted beetles. Each wing cover can have up to 10 black spots These ladybirds now rival the box elder bug for most annoying insect pest trying to get in my house to spend the winter. Despite this annoying trait, Harmonia axyridis is of great benefit to agriculture, preying as it does upon many species of injurious soft-bodied insects such as aphids, scales, and psyllids.

Ladybugs, also called lady beetles or ladybird beetles, are actually beetles in the Coleoptera family Coccinellidae. As insects go, they are a very beneficial group, being natural enemies of many agricultural pests, especially aphids and other critters that damage plants by feeding on their sap. A single ladybug can consume vast quantities of aphids in its lifetime, perhaps as many as 5,000 or more. There is a brisk business in commercial ladybugs for aphid control, and some of the species found here in North America are actually "invasives" brought from Europe or Asia for such purpose. Coccinella septempunctata, the seven-spotted ladybug, sometimes called ‘C-7', is a medium-sized, orange beetle with seven black spots. It is a European species that was introduced into the US to aid in managing some aphid pests. Harmonia axyridis, the Multicolored Asian lady beetle, was introduced to North America many times, finally taking hold and becoming established in the 1980's. This invasive has become far and away the most numerous of the Coccinellids here in the midwest, and they are becoming one of the most annoying insect pests, invading homes to overwinter, much as the box elder bug.

Adult ladybugs have convex, hemispherical shaped elytra (the hardened wings used to cover the soft flying wings underneath) that can be yellow, pink, orange, red, or black, and usually are marked with distinct spots. This is a type of warning coloration (aposematic coloring), thought to discourage predators. Lady beetles also have another defense: an odorous, noxious fluid that seeps out of their leg joints when the insects are disturbed. I can truthfully say, I've been fooling with ladybugs since I was a child but I've never noticed such a thing. It must be that the quantity of such fluid is so small as to affect only small creatures.

Ladybugs, both adults and larvae, are known primarily as predators of aphids (plant lice), but they prey also on many other pests such as soft-scale insects, mealybugs, spider mites and eggs of the Colorado Potato Beetle and European Corn Borer. A few feed on plant and pollen mildews. One larva will eat about 400 medium-size aphids during its development to the pupal stage. An adult will eat about 300 medium-size aphids before it lays eggs. About three to ten aphids are eaten for each egg the beetle lays.

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