Take your pick: ladybug, ladybird, lady beetle, ladyfly, even ladycow. Whatever you call it, this little bug is still a beetle, complete with the trademark beetle wing covers and biting mouthparts. It was named after Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, because folks in Europe during the Middle Ages believed it could perform miracles, such as saving farm crops from ruin. In fact, a huge appetite for crop-eating pests was behind its reputation. Ladybugs are powerful eating machines. A large ladybug larva can wolf down 500 plant-sucking aphids in a single day, earning it a great nickname: aphid wolf.

Luckily for the ladybug, aphids are not fast-moving, so it can feed rather leisurely. It wanders around plants where aphids hang out, chomping up whatever prey it bumps into. If it has trouble locating regular prey, a ladybug can simply do without food for a while—or nibble on the pollen from flowers. In emergencies, it might attack and eat its own larvae or the oval eggs that female ladybugs stick to leaves and cones.

People are often attracted to the ladybug’s bold colours and patterns, but these striking features turn off many insect-eating birds and other animals. The colours warn: “I stink, and I taste yucky, too.” If that’s not enough to encourage predators to look elsewhere for meals, the ladybug can back up its warning by squirting foul-tasting yellow blood from the joints in its legs. It can even play dead, falling on its back with all six legs and both antennae held close to its body. When danger has passed, the “dead” ladybug presses down with its hard wing covers and flips itself right side up.

Originally published in YES Mag #19, Autumn 2000