Kidney-spotted fairy lady beetle
Psyllobora renifer
The kidney-spotted fairy lady beetle is a tiny ladybird, only about 2 millimetres long. Its wing cases have dark spots shaped like kidney beans. The spots often join up into bigger patches.
Lives in
North and Central America
Length
1.8 to 2.4 mm (0.07 to 0.09 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It is tiny and does not bite people.
What does it eat?
It does not eat aphids like many ladybirds. Instead it eats powdery mildew, a white fuzzy mould that grows on leaves.
How big is it?
How long is it?
🍚2.5 of them in a row are as long as one grain of rice⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 20 seconds⚡moves 2200 times its own body length every second
How big is Kidney-spotted fairy lady beetle 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)
Kidney-spotted fairy lady beetle about 19 km/h (12 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It is so small that it could sit on the head of a match.
2
Its main food is powdery mildew, the white dust that sometimes covers plant leaves.
3
Its spots run together into big patches, which helps tell it apart from its close cousins.
you asked
Most asked questions about Kidney-spotted fairy lady beetle
?What does the kidney-spotted fairy lady beetle eat?
Mostly powdery mildew, a white mould that grows on leaves.
?How big is the kidney-spotted fairy lady beetle?
Only about 2 millimetres long, much smaller than a seven-spot ladybird.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Psyllobora renifer
- Group
- Ladybirds
- Family
- Coccinellidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Coccinellidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Psyllobora renifer (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 xpda. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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