Over and over, I see distressed gardeners post here about the big, bad, invasive Asian ladybug/lady beetle. The responses are usually the same from American posters: they're invasive, they're bad, they outcompete native ladybugs – kill, kill, kill!
Ease your minds, nature lovers. This is one battle we don't need to fight because it's all misinformation.
– They're not invasive because they're not harmful to the environment or to natives. Non-native isn't the same as invasive. There is a correlation between native ladybug population decline and Asian ladybug population growth. It's not the same as causation. There are other, established causes for insect population decline, like habitat loss, insecticides killing off their prey, etc. Just because an insect population thrives while another declines doesn't mean the thriving insects caused the decline.
– They don't invade houses because they're particularly aggressive. They seek warm cracks in cliffs in their native habitat. No cliffs? They'll go into your house.
– They eat non-prey when they run out of prey. Whether that makes them a pest depends on your garden and viewpoint, I guess.
– They can bite. That one is true. So can dragonflies, btw, and those fuckers hurt, but I don't go around killing them.
Entomologists, feel free to correct me. I'm going off trusted publications here but I'm not a scientist. I just like bugs.
Is the Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle Bad? | Pests in the Urban Landscape https://share.google/iYuDHxVfAOTFqGtgx
asian-lady-beetles.pdf https://share.google/1o47FLoGyNiZ2OL4c
Multi-Colored Asian Lady Beetles (MALB) in Arkansas https://share.google/Xxxru5OtIBlwXpnCa
by petit_cochon
31 Comments
Other non native insects:
The earthworm (in many areas the earthworms died due to glaciers. Europeans introduced them. They are changing forest soils all over the country)
The common honeybee. This one actually competes for resources from native ~~honey~~bees such as the squash bee.
Hmmm I know they “bite” but I’ve collected thousands of them for research l and was never bitten by one. Anything with teeth (or mandibles) can bite and will when scared, but I bet most reported bites are just claw scratches.
Minute pirate bugs…those are the bites that you care about…
But yeah, Asian lady beetles are Good Bugs. I’ve had an attic full of them and it’s annoying but they are still the good guys.
I agree. My son thought he found a ton of lady bugs and I do adore them, so he packed a few and brought them over. They were in fact Asian ladybug/lady beetle. I released them into to my HOUSE to prey on the pests I do have in my 200+ indoor plants. Free beneficial bugs for the win!
I can’t comment from a scientific viewpoint, but I have always found it very difficult to believe they can be more harmful in a garden than the pests they remove.
I mostly see this topic come up when people talk about buying ladybugs to release in their garden to eat aphids.
My house is INFESTED with these poor guys, I keep catching them with my bare hands and releasing them outside, must be hundreds by now, never bitten once.
I understand that hibernating in my accommodatingly permeable house might not constitute an invasion as such, but when the weather warms up and these little bastards come out of hibernation and suddenly there’s a dozen or more of them crawling across my kitchen window, or I’ve had to pick one out of my hair, or they’re driving my cats insane with their flying around? Yeah, I’m calling that an invasion.
That said, better them than stink bugs!
>They’re not invasive because they’re not harmful to the environment or to natives. Non-native isn’t the same as invasive.
Correct that non-native is not the same as invasive. However, youre wrong about them not being invasive… multiple states have them listed on their invasive species list. So yes, they are invasive.
Every single autumn like clockwork, a small huddle of Asian lady beetles finds its way into a high corner of my sunny, vaulted living room ceiling. They don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them. They live there politely through the winter, then leave in the Spring, never growing in number or behaving with impropriety.
I welcome these visitors, and even look forward to them.
i only squish the ones who actively bite me, because that’s self defense haha. I was traumatized as a child when we had thousands of them living around our HEAVILY wooded home and coming home from school we’d have to make it through a barrage of them to get from the end of the driveway to the house. I would get bitten at least twice EVERY DAY for like a week until they settled down and flew into the woods.
This post brought to you by “big bug” lobbyists.
Thank you for this post.
To add the house ‘invasion’ thing happens with native species too, I think. It just depends on the type.
Thats just the sort of misinformation Id expect from an Asian ladybug…
I think one of the problems with them isn’t so much that they are eating our plants etc but that they are reducing the food source for our native ladybug species.
I squash them when I see them, I react badly to their bites, so they don’t get to live, luckily we see them only very rarely
I’ve been told they release something toxic to dogs, is that true?
I’ve never had a dragonfly try to bite me but I’ve been bitten by plenty of these MFers. Spiders bite too but none have had a go at me. I’m friendly to any species that are friendly to me. But those asian lady beetles just wanna fight for no reason.
I’m curious about Chinese mantises as well, does anyone have info?
Thank you so much. the misinfo about ladybugs is really frustrating.
>No cliffs? They’ll go into your house
Yea… that’s the problem
Thank you for this. I saw the previous post and tried to help dispell the misinfo but it got out of hand fast
I think the common issue is that native ladybug are a brighter color of red and people miss them. I miss them. I remember noticing the color change. I never heard they were harmful other than crowding out the native species.
I respect and rescue them. A lil soda water to keep them from flying away then I put them on my seed starts where they eat aphids, mate, lay eggs then continue the cyclel,
My second floor bathroom looks like a scene from the Amityville Horror right now–at least 30 of them crawling all over the walls, windows, and ceiling. I have a dedicated dust buster for getting rid of them. So they feel invasive to me, but it’s good to know they’re not an environmental problem.
That said, I have also captured and transferred them to some house plants that had aphids or some other pests on them, and they did the job there.
I searched this sub for asian lady beetles and found four posts over the last five years.
Thank you! People out here squishing them left and right while they provide all the same benefits native ones do.
I got wrecked by them one day when I had a horde on my house and I started spraying insecticide, it pissed them off and they started biting me like crazy.
Here’s the video from that day
[https://imgur.com/gallery/move-to-country-they-said-ladybugs-are-cute-they-said-Xg8QIob](https://imgur.com/gallery/move-to-country-they-said-ladybugs-are-cute-they-said-Xg8QIob)
When I was renovating the house I tore off a piece of sheetrock and there was a pile about the size of two of my fists just balled up sleeping inside the wall.
When they decide to infest a house, they really get after it, that’s the problem with them.
This is misinformation. Just the AI google summary has the basic run down. But citation needed right? Here.
>Invasive Asian lady beetles (Harmonia axyridis) severely impact native ladybug populations by outcompeting them for food resources, such as aphids, and directly preying on native ladybug eggs and larvae. These invaders also carry microsporidian parasites to which they are immune but that can kill native species, contributing to a significant decline in local biodiversity
Citation.
Once introduced for biological pest control, Asian lady beetle populations have been increasing uncontrollably. Scientists have now found the reason for the animal’s success. Its body fluid contains microsporidia, fungus-like protozoa that parasitize body cells and can cause immense harm to their host. The Asian lady beetle is obviously resistant to these parasites. However, transferred to native species, microsporidia can be lethal.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130516142541.htm#:~:text=taste%20of%20wine.-,What%20is%20this?,in%20the%20hemolymph%20of%20H.
Yes. The non native hysteria is out of control. There is a difference between non native and invasive. You don’t go around ripping out everyone’s begonias. Chill!
I am an ecologist (ornithologist not entomologist but I’m close to 2 who I know would agree with everything you outline here) and I approve this holistic overview. They are household pests and the only battle worth fighting with them is in your window sills and sashes. Otherwise they’re inert
Myth? Oh bless your heart…Asian Lady Beetles are a menace if you live in certain regions. Their population where I live is extreme.
They swarm in the millions. Millions.
They ruin my dried flower inventory–stored in totes. As soon as the farmer across the street harvests her corn and soy, they come to my house. They enter in my attic roof vents, doors, windows, hichhike on me when I go in and out. My outbuildings are a disaster.
They BITE. It hurts. And the welts last for days and I’m not even allergic to them like my partner is. He has it far worse.
Oh! And I still have aphids, white flies, et al. The picture is from right now. I packed these dried flowers last week in a cardboard box. Big mistake. It’s not Asian Lady Beetle swarn season afterall…
https://preview.redd.it/ehd6q1e7l8rg1.jpeg?width=3072&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f00cd9bd9225dd26f5d9948281c524153053d205