Twice-stabbed Lady Beetle - Chilocorus stigma - North American Insects & spiders

Twice-stabbed Lady Beetle – Chilocorus stigma

Family Coccinellidae – Lady Beetles
Ladybugs are known primarily as predators of aphids, but they prey also on many other pests

Ladybugs—also called lady beetles or ladybird beetles—belong to the beetle family Coccinellidae (Coleoptera). These insects are among the most effective natural enemies of aphids and other sap-feeding pests. A single adult can consume up to 5,000 aphids in its lifetime. Both adults and larvae are voracious, feeding not only on aphids, but also on soft-scale insects, mealybugs, spider mites, and the eggs of the Colorado Potato Beetle and European Corn Borer. Some species even graze on plant and pollen mildews.

Because of their appetite for pests, ladybugs are used commercially for biological control. Several species now common in North America are non-native imports. Coccinella septempunctata, the European seven-spotted ladybug (“C-7”), was brought in to help manage aphid outbreaks. Harmonia axyridis, the Multicolored Asian lady beetle, has become especially prolific since its establishment in the 1980s. It’s now the most abundant lady beetle in the Midwest—and have surpassed the box elder bug and brown stinkbug as primary and insanely numerous invaders of my century-old home.

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) is 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.

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.

Order Coleoptera: Beetles are the dominant form of life on earth: one of every five living species is a beetle. Coleoptera is the largest order in the animal kingdom, containing a third of all insect species. There are about 400,000 known species worldwide, ~30,000 of which live in North America. Beetles live in nearly every habitat, and for every kind of food, there’s probably a beetle species that eats it.