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Ladybug, also called ladybird or lady beetle, is a small beetle with a round body shaped like half a pea. It is often bright red or yellow, with black, red, white, or yellow spots. Ladybugs feed chiefly on aphids and scale insects. Thus, fruit growers find ladybugs to be helpful. During the late 1800's, the cottony cushion scale, a scale insect pest, almost destroyed the fruit crop of California, and ladybugs were brought in to control the pest and save the crop. There are two kinds of ladybugs that harm beans, melons, squashes, and other garden plants. But the work of the beneficial kinds of ladybugs far outweighs the damage done by the few harmful ones.
Scientific Classification. Ladybugs are in the order Coleoptera and make up the family Coccinellidae. There are about 150 species in the United States.
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