Ladybugs
Loved by gardeners because a single ladybug can eat thousands of aphids in its life, these beetles are pest control on six legs. These guides cover their biology, life cycle, and how to attract the native kinds.
The gardener's best friend. One larva clears hundreds of aphids, so if you see them, do nothing and let them work.
Size
1 to 10 mm
across species
Species
Around 6,000
worldwide
Diet
Aphids, mites, scale
at a ferocious pace
Habitat
Wherever aphids gather
indoors over winter
Larva
A tiny black alligator
the real workhorse
Life cycle
Four stages in a garden year; stage two is the one that gets mistaken for a pest.
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Egg Yellow clusters laid beside an aphid colony; they hatch in about a week.
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Larva The tiny alligator from Sam's note. It spends weeks eating aphids and gets squashed as a pest.
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Pupa Orange and black, anchored to a leaf while the rebuild happens inside. Easy to overlook.
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Adult The familiar dome. It overwinters in clusters and starts the cycle over in spring.
Half the people who message me about a strange black bug on their roses have found a ladybug larva and are about to squash their own pest control. Learn the larva before you learn the adult; the young ones do the heavy lifting.
Sam Fielding · field note · about Sam
Typical season
Active across the warm months; they cluster indoors or under bark to overwinter.
A single ladybug can eat around 5,000 aphids in its life, most of them during its spiky, alligator-shaped larval stage.
Ladybugs
The welcome one. Round, red, and spotted, with a spiky black larva that does most of the aphid clearing. If they have moved in, your garden is feeding them well.