I picked a little fleck off my pant leg and it crawled up onto my thumb for a picture. It looked like a lady beetle but it seemed too small. Through the wonders of INaturalist, it came up as the number one choice, a twenty-spotted lady beetle (TLB) Psyllobora vigintimaculata. Another common name is "wee tiny ladybug." At 2-3mm long, I thought they would rarely be "spotted" (sorry!) but I found 9 pages of their photographs on Bugguide.
Psyllobora sp. are called fungus-eating lady beetles. P. vigintimaculata (Latin for twenty spotted) feeds on powdery mildew that occurs on leaves from ground level to tree tops. They scrape up fungal spores with mandibles armed with rake-like rows of small teeth.
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| TLB are found in all states including Alaska and the the first specimen to be described was in Missouri! They
come in a variety of colors with a white to tan background. The color
can be variable, based partially on the region they are found in, but they
all have in common placement of their spots. Like all "ladybugs" they are beetles in the family Coccinellidae. The majority of this family feed on plant eating insects that are unpopular with gardeners such as aphids and scale insects. Although we think of them crawling around they are capable of flight after lifting their heavy wing covers. Ten years ago identifying species like this required an extensive knowledge of entomology and would be left to the species specialists or an extensive search of old reference books. Now sites with photo recognition such as INaturalist.org allow quick comparisons and expert entomologists share their time identifying photographs on Bugguide. What a great time to become a nature nerd! |
