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Sticker of Orange-spotted ladybird beetle
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Orange-spotted ladybird beetle

Coccinella leonina

The orange-spotted ladybird is a black ladybird covered in orange spots. It lives only in New Zealand. It is a hungry hunter of aphids in grasslands, bush, pastures and crops.

Lives in
Only New Zealand, from the seashore up to the mountains
Length
4.5 to 5.5 mm (0.18 to 0.22 in)
Top speed
about 29 km/h (18 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot hurt you.
What does it eat?
Like other ladybirds, it eats aphids, such as the cabbage aphid and the woolly apple aphid.
For real!Photo of Orange-spotted ladybird beetle
Picture by Jacob Littlejohn. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Orange-spotted ladybird beetle about 5.5 mm long (0.22 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould fly across a whole football pitch in 13 secondsmoves 1500 times its own body length every second

How big is Orange-spotted ladybird beetle compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It has 16 orange spots: one on each side of its front and 14 on its wing covers.

2

Its Māori name is pāpapa kōpure.

3

Its larva is dark grey with bright orange markings.

4

The scientist who first named it thought it came from Australia, but that was a mistake.

5

Birds like starlings and the shining bronze cuckoo eat it.

you asked

Most asked questions about Orange-spotted ladybird beetle

?Where does the orange-spotted ladybird live?

Only in New Zealand, in grasslands, bush, pastures and crops.

?How many spots does the orange-spotted ladybird have?

16 orange spots on its black body.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Coccinella leonina
Named by
Fabricius, 1775
Group
Ladybirds
Family
Coccinellidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Coccinellidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Orange-spotted ladybird, Pāpapa kōpure

Where the facts come from

  1. Coccinella leonina (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 Jacob Littlejohn. CC BY-SA 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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