2-Spot Ladybird Beetle (mating pair)

Description:

These great little garden helpers are widely referred to as ladybugs but in fact these helpful insects are not bugs at all, they are beetles. The term ladybug is considered scientifically to be slang for the correct name Lady Beetle. Other popular names include ladybird and ladybird beetle. Coccinellidae means "little sphere" and their shiny, often brightly colored bodies are dome shaped, oval, or convex. http://everything-ladybug.com/ladybug-fa...

Habitat:

There are about 5,000 different species of ladybugs in the world! Approximately 400 species of these great little beetles can be found here in North America. There are about 175 of those species in the state of California. The most common beneficial species in North America is the Convergent Lady Beetle. It gets it's name from a pair of white convergent dashes on the pronotum / prothorax. Other species common to the USA: 2-spotted Lady Beetle, 7-spotted Lady Beetle, 9-spotted Lady Beetle, 11-spotted Lady Beetle, 13-spotted Lady Beetle, 14-spotted Lady Beetle 15-spotted Lady Beetle, Eye-spotted Lady Beetle, Pine Lady Beetle, Parenthesis Lady Beetle, Timberlake spotted Lady Beetle, Transverse Lady Beetle, Twice-stabbed Lady Beetle. http://everything-ladybug.com/ladybug-fa...

Notes:

Ladybugs particularly like aphids and may eat upwards of 5,000 in it's lifetime. Also on the menu for these hungry little pest eaters are small insects such as whitefly, mealybugs, scales, mites, bollworm, broccoli worm, tomato hornworm and cabbage moth. They will also eat the eggs of some insects such as moth eggs and certain ladybugs eat pollen and mildew. Rarely but if necessary a ladybug may resort to cannibalism. http://everything-ladybug.com/ladybug-fa...