Epilachna Lady Beetles

Epilachna paenulata · Order: Coleoptera · Family: Coccinellidae

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Epilachna Lady Beetles
Photo: Gabriel Albelda, CC BY

Adults are about 7 to 9 mm long and are black with yellow markings on the pronotum and elytra, which have eight black spots. This beetle occurs in several South American countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Paraguay.

Source: Wikipedia

How to recognize it

The beetle’s body is black, while the sides and front corner of the pronotum are yellow, and each wing cover is yellow with eight black spots.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

Adults measure roughly 6.8 to 8.8 mm in length.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 40 of 51 states and DC. Most records: Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Maryland, Connecticut.

Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.

Source: GBIF

Months it is reported in the US

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Source: GBIF

More photos

Epilachna Lady Beetles photo 3
Photo: Emi Welschinger, CC BY-SA
Epilachna Lady Beetles photo 4
Photo: Mirko Duimich, CC BY
Epilachna Lady Beetles photo 5
Photo: Mirko Duimich, CC BY
Epilachna Lady Beetles photo 6
Photo: RAP, CC BY

Same family (Coccinellidae)

Asian Lady BeetleAsian Lady BeetleHarmonia axyridisCan biteSeven-spotted Lady BeetleSeven-spotted Lady BeetleCoccinella septempunctataConvergent Lady BeetleConvergent Lady BeetleHippodamia convergensCan biteFourteen-spotted Lady BeetleFourteen-spotted Lady BeetlePropylea quatuordecimpunctataVariegated Lady BeetleVariegated Lady BeetleHippodamia variegataSpotless Lady BeetleSpotless Lady BeetleCycloneda sanguinea

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilachna_paenulata

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-23 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-23.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.