seven-spotted lady beetle |
 |
||||||
Coccinella septempunctata |
|||||||
| Order | Coleoptera (Beetles) |
||||||
| Suborder | Polyphaga (Water, Rove, Scarab, Longhorn, Leaf and Snout Beetles) |
||||||
| Superfamily | Cucujoidea (Ladybird Beetles) |
||||||
| Family | Coccinellidae (Flower, Flat Bark and Ladybird Beetles) |
||||||
| Nativity | Native to Europe. Introduced for aphid control. Escaped and naturalized. |
||||||
| Season | Early spring to fall |
||||||
| Habitat | Meadows, fields, gardens, houses. Any place having plants with aphids. |
||||||
| Size | |
||||||
| Larval Food | Aphids |
||||||
| Adult Food | Aphids, thrips, mites, scale insects, and eggs of butterflies and moths. |
||||||
| Identification | This is a The body is oval and dome-shaped. The head and thorax plate (pronotum) is black with a white or pale spot on each side of the head. The thick, hardened, shell-like forewings (elytra) are orange or red with 7 black spots. The spots are in a 1–4–2 pattern. The forward spot is spread over the junction on the two elytra. There is a white spot at the base of each side of the forward spot. |
||||||
| Life Cycle | Adults live for weeks or months, depending on availability of food. There may be 1 or 2 generations in a year before adults enter hibernation for overwintering. |
||||||
| Similar Species |
|
||||||
| Sightings | |||||||
| Comments | The term lady beetle is more appropriate than ladybug because bug refers to insects in the order Hemiptera. |
||||||
| Images | Click on an image for a larger view. | ||||||
|
|||||||
| Synonyms |
|
||||||
| Common Names |
seven-spotted lady beetle Sevenspotted lady beetle |
||||||