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Sticker of Three-striped lady beetle
Bug card No. 4362 of 4,939

Three-striped lady beetle

Brumoides suturalis

The three-striped lady beetle is a tiny ladybird, smaller than a grain of rice. Instead of spots, it has creamy yellow wing covers with black stripes. It is a great helper for farmers, because it eats lots of plant pests.

Lives in
South and Southeast Asia, from Pakistan and India to the Philippines and Papua New Guinea
Length
3.5 to 3.8 mm (0.14 to 0.15 in)
Top speed
about 24 km/h (15 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting people.
What does it eat?
It eats aphids, mealybugs, whiteflies, scale insects and other tiny plant pests.
For real!Photo of Three-striped lady beetle
Picture by Forest & Kim Starr (USGS). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Three-striped lady beetle about 3.8 mm long (0.15 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould fly across a whole football pitch in 16 secondsmoves 1800 times its own body length every second

How big is Three-striped lady beetle compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It is only about 3.5 millimetres long.

2

Scientists have seen it eat around 30 different kinds of pests.

3

The female hides 2 to 20 eggs in the cracks of curled leaves.

4

Its baby starts out smoky grey and fuzzy, and grows longer and spikier each time it sheds its skin.

you asked

Most asked questions about Three-striped lady beetle

?What does the three-striped lady beetle eat?

Aphids, mealybugs, whiteflies and other small pests on plants.

?How big is the three-striped lady beetle?

It is only 3.5 to 3.8 mm long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Brumoides suturalis
Named by
Fabricius, 1789
Group
Ladybirds
Family
Coccinellidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Coccinellidae
Lives on
Asia, Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Brumoides suturalis (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Forest & Kim Starr (USGS). Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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