Gentle Ladybugs are Actually Cannibals

The ladybug or ladybird is the perfect insect to help teach children to respect nature.

After all, ladybugs are cute insects, harmless to people, that come in a wide range of pretty colors. And they don’t flee from people: even young children can pick one up and hold it on a finger. Children’s books abound with pictures of friendly ladybugs, there are coloring books that feature them, educators talk about them in daycare and kindergarten and in addition, these nice insects eat the evil aphids that attack our garden plants. What a great story to tell!

Perhaps therefore it’s best not to burst your kid’s bubble by revealing that ladybugs are also cannibals.

Indeed, ladybugs will not hesitate to ingest one of their own if the opportunity presents itself. Examination of ladybugs caught in an American soybean field, for example, revealed residues of other ladybugs in half of the specimens.

Moreover, their cannibalism begins early.

Some species lay a mixture of fertile and infertile eggs. When the larva, which does not resemble the adult ladybug at all, but looks vaguely like a small alligator, is born and if it finds no other prey nearby (aphids, scale insects, mites, whiteflies, etc.), it will first eat an infertile egg to gain strength. Then, if the other larvae don’t disperse rapidly, it will eat them too. Even adults will readily eat larvae or even other adults when they have the opportunity.

Cannibal ladybugs? Who knew!