Chilocorus bipustulatus explained

Chilocorus bipustulatus, the heather ladybird, is a beetle species belonging to the family Coccinellidae, subfamily Chilocorinae.

These beetles are found in most of the Palearctic realm,[1] (Europe, North Africa, Asia north of the Himalayan foothills, and northern and central Arabian Peninsula),[2] and has been introduced to tropical Africa, Hawaii, and North America.[3]

The elytra of this small beetle are a shiny brown with two reddish-orange spots on each elytron (hence the Latin word Latin: bipustulatus, meaning two-blistered). Sometime three spots run in an horizontal line and join into two larger stains.

The mature larva is about long. Wintering occurs as an adult. The adults grow up to 3- long and can be encountered from May through October.

In Europe it occurs in fruit gardens, pine forests, and stone quarries.[4] In Poland it was found on grasses, low vegetation and bushes, on heath lands, under flakes of bark on pines and fruit trees, occasionally in leaf litter and in moss[5]

Heather ladybirds feed on aphids and scale insects (mainly belonging to the family Coccidae and Diaspididae) and is often introduced as a biological control in cases of infestation.[6] [7]

External links

Notes and References

  1. https://web.archive.org/web/20110628175914/http://www.faunaeur.org/full_results.php?id=230176 Fauna Europaea
  2. N. B. Nikitsky and А. S. Ukrainsky, 2016 The Ladybird Beetles (Coleoptera, Coccinellidae) of Moscow Province ISSN 0013-8738, Entomological Review, 2016, Vol. 96, No. 6, pp. 710–735 ISSN 0013-8738
  3. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=186961#null ITIS
  4. Koch, K., Die Käfer Mitteleuropas, Ökologie. Vol. 2 (Goecke und Evers Verlag, Krefeld, 1989).
  5. Burakowski, B., Mroczkowski, M., and Stefańska, J., Katalog Fauny Polski. Szęść XXIII, Chrząszcze– Coleoptera. Tom 13. Cucujoidea, część
  6. https://www.eppo.int/media/uploaded_images/RESOURCES/eppo_standards/pm6/pm6-03-2016-en.pdf Commercially used biological control agents
  7. Mansour, Rramzi . Mkaouar, Rim . Lebdi, Kaouthar Grissa . Suma, Pompeo . Russo, Agatino . 2011. A survey of scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) occurring on olives in Tunisia. Journal of Entomological and Acarological Research. 43. 3. 315 - 322.