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Written by Carina Piarulli and Illustrated by Ms. 

Zalamea's Students 

Ladybugs eat aphids and other insects, like 

scales and mites, that are harmful to plants.

Ladybugs are actually beetles, not bugs. 

They are also called lady birds or lady beetles, 

and their scientific name is Coccinellidae.

Ladybugs can be many different colors. 

They can be yellow, orange, pink, scarlet, 

red, gray, brown, or black. 

A ladybug develops by starting as an egg, 

hatching into a larva, molting and becoming a 

pupa, and breaking out of its hard covering 

into an adult. 

Female ladybugs lay their eggs in clusters 

or rows on the underside of leaves. They 

can lay between 2 and 100 eggs at once. 

Ladybugs can live in places like forests, 

fields, grasslands, parks, crop fields, and 

gardens, where there are a lot of insect pests.

Gardeners really like ladybugs because 

they eat plant-damaging insects and do not 

destroy any helpful insects.

A ladybug’s oval shaped body has a 

head, a thorax, and an abdomen.

Some ladybugs are as small as .03 inches and 

others are as big as .7 inches, but most 

ladybugs are somewhere in between. Female 

ladybugs are bigger than male ladybugs. 

Ladybugs complete their life cycle of 

starting as an egg and reaching their full 

adult size in just three to seven weeks.

There are about 5,000 different kinds of 

ladybugs around the world and about 475 

different kinds in North America. 

When ladybug larvae first hatch, they eat 

their shells and then start eating lots of 

aphids. Ladybug larvae look like tiny 

alligators.

Ladybugs can fly about 15 miles per hour. 

Their inner wings beat eighty five times per 

second.

Not all ladybugs have spots. Some of them 

have stripes and some of them don’t have 

any pattern.

When a ladybug is on the ground, its outer 

wings are closed, but when a ladybug flies, its 

outer wings swing out to the sides and help 

lift the ladybug into the air. 

The predators of ladybugs are birds, 

frogs, wasps, spiders, and dragonflies.

Ladybugs are quite harmless to humans. 

They are important insects that help the 

environment.

The most familiar ladybug in North America 

is the shiny red and black ladybug with 7 

spots.

 A ladybug has two sets of wings. Its outer 

wings protect its inner wings, which are 

delicate and are used for flying.

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