Purple scale predator
The purple scale predator is a tiny ladybird that is a real garden helper. It has a reddish brown, hairy head and dark wing cases with a bronze shine. It hunts the little bugs that hurt orange and lemon trees.
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Fun facts
It is only about 2 millimetres long, smaller than a sesame seed.
Young larvae crawl right under a scale insect's shell to eat the babies hiding there.
People brought it from Australia to California in 1892 to fight a plant pest called the olive scale.
The scientist who named it thought it was an American beetle. He did not know it had come from Australia.
Its larvae are dark brown and covered in stout spines.
Most asked questions about Purple scale predator
?What does the purple scale predator eat?
Scale insects and mealybugs, tiny sap-sucking bugs that harm plants like citrus trees.
?Is the purple scale predator good for gardens?
Yes. Farmers have used it to bring down the number of scale insects on their crops.
?How big is the purple scale predator?
Tiny, only about 1.7 to 2.85 millimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Rhyzobius lophanthae
- Named by
- Blaisdell, 1892
- Group
- Ladybirds
- Family
- Coccinellidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Coccinellidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania, North America, Europe
- Also known as
- Scale-eating ladybird
Where the facts come from
- Rhyzobius lophanthae (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 Andreas Sanchez, Yannick Chittaro. CC BY 4.0, 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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