Everyone likes to see ladybugs - especially well-informed hobby gardeners who know about their valuable usefulness. However, not everyone is actively aware of how diverse the ladybug family actually is. Here we introduce you to a few.
The Asian ladybug threatens to displace our native ones
The Amazing Variety of Ladybugs
Ladybirds form a family of their own within the zoological order of beetles. And it's extremely diverse. In this country, one is hardly aware of this, because we only have a fraction of the many different species. In addition, most people associate ladybugs with the typical black dot coloring on a red background. There are also ladybug species with different tones and patterns.
Overall, the taxonomy of ladybugs looks like this:
- 360 genera with over 6000 species worldwide
- In Europe only 75 genera with about 250 species are represented
- the species occurring in Europe belong to the subfamily Coccinellinae
Which ladybugs you can see in this country
The subfamily Coccinellinae is in turn divided into many different genera and species. Of course, we cannot portray everyone here, so we are concentrating on a small selection of the species that we see most often here:
- Seven-spot ladybug
- Ten Spot Ladybug
- Asian ladybug
- Twenty-two spot ladybug
Seven-spot ladybug
This species is probably the most common in Germany. And also the most picture-perfect. The seven-point ladybug serves as a kind of prototype for ladybugs in children's books or for handicraft templates: its appearance is characterized by the typical tomato-red basic color of the elytra with black dots - 7 in number. Incidentally, the number of dots is not an indicator of the lifespan of the beetle, as is often assumed, but rather varies from species to species and persists over the lifespan of the beetle.
Ten Spot Ladybug
The ten-point ladybug does not necessarily have exactly ten points on its pair of elytra, but only approximately. Some individuals can also have significantly fewer points, some even no points at all. As if that wasn't confusing enough, ten-spot ladybugs can vary widely in color. There are light, red-orange and dark, brown to black color characteristics.
Asian ladybug
It is also called Harlequin because it shows a high-contrast coloration with rather angular, large, patchy spots. But the color and pattern spectrum of the Asian ladybird is also relatively large. Usually, however, they are spotted tomato red and black, which is typical of ladybirds, or vice versa. An interesting piece of additional horticultural information: the Asian ladybird was introduced to us a few years ago specifically as a pest killer. It consumes significantly more aphids than the good old seven-spot ladybird. In the meantime, he is even almost superior to this in terms of population.
Twenty-two spot ladybug
The twenty-two-spot ladybug is finally someone you can rely on again: Because it reliably has 22 spots - exactly 11 on each wing - and is also consistently colored yellow. Another great thing about him is that he not only eats aphids, but also mildew fungi. A double helper for hobby gardeners.