CROATIAN FAUNA 2005 - LADYBIRD

Ladybird - Coccinella septempunctata L. Along the many related species: yellow with black spots, black, orange and red, the ladybird (also called ladybug) belongs to the insect family Coccinellidae (ladybirds), the order of Coleoptera. The ladybird is the people’s favourite among insects and there are also some terms of endearment like božji volek (approximately ‘God’s bullock’). The insect is spread all over Europe, Asia and northern Africa. Ladybirds are round in contour and flat below, more than 8 mm in length. Its head with antennae is so small that it can be folded below the body. Behind the head there is a black wider thoracic shield with two wide yellow spots. The upper wings are, like in all Coleoptera are thickened and rigid, and are often called forewings. They are red in colour with seven black spots, three of them arranged in triangles on each forewing, while the seventh is placed below the thoracic shield in the middle of both forewings. The hind-wings are membranous, so the insect can fly well at shorter distances. In nature it can be found from early spring to late autumn in fields, forests, on various plants. In early spring the adults come out of their winter shelters and soon afterwards start to mate. The females lay their eggs in little piles of 10 to 12 eggs on the reverse part of plant leaves, primarily where aphids and scale lice can be found. These will soon be juicy food for the larvae. A female can lay 400 to 700 eggs. The larvae are great predators – one of them can eat around 3,000 aphids, and this is why they are classified among useful insects, like most insects from this family, though some species can be harmful. The larva is greyish-green – with an elongated body with black and yellow spiky warts on each body ringlet. The larvae often shed and grow fast in the course of the process. They are very mobile, looking for adult and larger specimen of aphids. In the final shedding of the shell in the larvae phase, it calms down and turns into a pupa that hangs upside down as an orange bladder with black spots. The adult form of the insect emerges from the pupa, soft and white, but soon acquires the recognizable “decoration”. Depending on the weather conditions it can have two to three generations a year.