Bug card No. 0541 of 1,500

Fourteen-spot ladybird

Propylea quatuordecimpunctata

Name means: “quatuordecimpunctata means fourteen spots”

Eats: Other bugs and small animals LadybirdsGardens and meadows6 legs

The fourteen-spot ladybird is a small yellow ladybird with black, square-ish spots. Often the spots join together in the middle of its back and make a shape like an anchor. It is never red, which helps you tell it apart from many other ladybirds.

Lives in

Europe, North Africa and Asia, and now North America, in gardens, meadows, fields and woods

Length

3.5 to 4.5 mm (0.14 to 0.18 in)

Top speed

about 26 km/h (16 mph)

Flying, estimate

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

Harmless to people, and a good friend to gardeners.

What does it eat?

It eats aphids, whiteflies, scale insects and the eggs and young of some beetles and butterflies.

Photo of Fourteen-spot ladybird — Picture by Please report references to [email protected] .. CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

small enough to sit on your fingernailcould fly across a whole football pitch in 15 secondsmoves 1600 times its own body length every second

How big is Fourteen-spot ladybird compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)

A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)

Fourteen-spot ladybird about 26 km/h (16 mph)

A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

It has more than 100 different colour patterns. Some look so different that scientists first thought they were separate kinds.

Some are so dark that they look black with 12 pale yellow spots.

A mother lays about 400 eggs.

People brought it to the USA to eat aphids that harm wheat.

Adults can live through two winters.

you asked

Most asked questions about Fourteen-spot ladybird

?What does the fourteen-spot ladybird eat?

Mostly aphids and other tiny plant pests, so gardeners like it.

?How big is the fourteen-spot ladybird?

It is tiny, only about 4 millimetres long.

?Does it always have 14 spots?

Usually it has 14, but they often join together into bigger shapes.

For bug experts

Scientific name: Propylea quatuordecimpunctata
Named by: Linnaeus, 1758
Group: Ladybirds
Family: Coccinellidae
Classification: Insecta > Coleoptera > Coccinellidae
Lives on: Europe, Africa, Asia, North America
Also known as: 14-spotted ladybird beetle, P-14

Where the facts come from

Propylea quatuordecimpunctata (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
Picture by Please report references to [email protected] .. CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same 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.