BBC Wild Day Out Ladybird cards and Activity Book

Abstract

Ladybirds belong to a family of beetles scientifically called the Coccinellidae. There are 46 species of ladybird but only 26 actually look like ladybirds. The other 20 are not as brightly coloured as the ladybirds we are familiar with. Only the 26 brightly coloured and easily recognisable ladybirds are included in these Ladybird game cards. Most ladybirds eat insects that we think of as pests, such as aphids (greenfly) and some very strange bugs called scale insects. There are also other things that live off these pest insects and so they are in the same food web as ladybirds, such as: spiders, ground beetles, hoverflies, lacewings and even parasites