What are ladybirds?

Beetle

Ladybirds are really small, spotted beetles with a rounded body shaped like half a pea.  The polka-dotted ladybird, or ladybug, is really  small beetle with a round body shaped like half a pea.  

The most familiar ladybirds are shiny red with black spots. But some are black with red spots.  Still others are yellow with black of red spots.

These gaily colored insects live in a orchards, gardens, and fields, where they eat great number of aphids and other plant-harming bugs.

In order times, farmers burning off their fields fretted about harming the helpful ladybird, giving rise to the children’s verse:  “ladybird, ladybird, fly away home.  Your house is on fire and your children are gone.”

To “fly away home,” a ladybird first raises its hard wing covers and then unfolds it flying wings.  The lady bird beetle got its name during the Middle Ages, when the insect was associated with the Virgin Mary by such names as creatures of Our Lady and Animals of the Virgin.–Dick Rogers