Yellow ladybirds, brown ladybirds

I’m re-blogging this post because it’s so useful to know there are many different colored ladybirds residing in our gardens.

Many thanks to Hortographical for letting me share her post.

hortographical

In the UK, when we think of ladybirds we probably mostly think of the shiny red little creatures with black spots. These are the most common, but there are actually more than 40 UK ladybird species and they come in all kinds of colour combinations!

So far, this spring, I haven’t seen any of the red ladybirds (although I did see them through the winter). What I have seen are these two rather pretty ladybirds: a yellow one and a brown one. I think the yellow one with square-ish black spots is a 14-spot ladybird; and the brown one with creamy coloured spots is called (perhaps predictably) a cream spot ladybird. Both of these, like many other ladybird species, feed on aphids and are very welcome garden guests.

14-spot ladybird (Propylea 14 punctata) on hazel