Bug FAQVedalia Beetle
Novius cardinalis · Order: Coleoptera · Family: Coccinellidae
Also called: Cardinal Ladybird
The vedalia beetle is a tiny, dome-shaped ladybird about 2.5 to 4 mm long, with a black head, prothorax back and scutellum and a variable red-and-black pattern on the rest of its body. Both larvae and adults feed exclusively on the cottony cushion scale insect that lives on many trees, making the beetle a useful biological control agent.
Source: Wikipedia
Size
Adults are dome-shaped, flattened underneath, and measure about 2.5 to 4 mm long, covered in dense short hairs.
Source: Wikipedia
What it eats
Both larvae and adults feed exclusively on the cottony cushion scale insect, which lives on trees such as acacia, citrus, magnolia, olive and rose.
Source: Wikipedia
Life cycle
First-instar larvae are reddish with legs, and there are four instars; the fourth-instar grows to about 5 mm before attaching to a twig or leaf to pupate.
Source: Wikipedia
When you see it
Females stop laying eggs when temperatures rise above roughly 32 °C (90 °F).
Source: Wikipedia
Where it comes from
Novius cardinalis is native to Australia.
Source: Wikipedia
Where it is found in the US
Recorded in 9 of 51 states and DC. Most records: California, Hawaii, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Arizona, North Carolina.
Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.
Source: GBIF
Status: introduced in North America; introduced in United States. Source: iNaturalist
Months it is reported in the US
Source: GBIF
More photos
Questions people ask
What does the vedalia beetle eat?
Both the larvae and adults feed only on the cottony cushion scale insect that lives on many trees.
Source: Wikipedia
How big is an adult vedalia beetle?
Adults are about 2.5 to 4 mm long and have a dome-shaped, hair-covered body.
Source: Wikipedia
When do female vedalia beetles stop laying eggs?
They stop laying eggs when temperatures exceed about 32 °C (90 °F).
Source: Wikipedia
Same family (Coccinellidae)
Sources
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novius_cardinalis
Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · ITIS · Wikipedia
Text written 2026-10-25 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-25.