To gardeners, ladybugs are the good guys! Recognized as a symbol of good luck, these cute red and black bugs feed on soft-bodied insects, like aphids and mealybugs, that feed on our plants. It’s not uncommon to see containers of ladybugs for sale in garden centers for a small price. Packaged with promises of eating damaging pests on your plants, they often fly off the plant where they’ve been released. And if they remain on the plant, it’s not often they’ll stay on it long enough to lay eggs.

A listener Helen wrote to me, realizing she’s pretty lucky because she had ladybugs (they’re technically beetles) in her home. She asked for my help properly identifying them before releasing them under her fruit trees and near her garden. There’s a lot to unpackage here.

First of all, ladybugs aren’t super active in colder temperatures. That’s likely why they’re showing up in the house. Mating begins in early to mid spring.

Secondly, I’m not so sure that what Helen has are ladybugs. She described some as more yellow and black than red and black. The traditional ladybug is red and black and said to have 9 spots. Asian Lady beetles can be all different colors and display a varying number of spots. And they have mostly white heads and sport an “M” at the back of the head.

The importance in being able to decipher between the two is the difference between ‘natural’ versus becoming overrun with something ‘invasive’. Anything with “Asian”, “Chinese” or “Japanese” as the descriptor is referring to a plant or insect that is nonnative to the United States. While Asian Lady beetles don’t harm us, they outcompete ladybugs for food and resources. Indoors, they become a nuisance in large numbers, often emitting a bad odor and staining surfaces. They are also a known allergen to some people.

Lastly, the morphology of bugs can be pretty interesting! Ladybug eggs could look like something undesirable. They’re small, yellow eggs that stand upright in a cluster, often on the underside of a leaf. The larvae and pupae look tough, like tiny orange and black, spiky tire treads. It’s a lot a lean what life cycles of all bugs look like, but the lesson here is to properly identify a bug before making the determination of ‘friend’ or ‘foe’.

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