Coccinella (genus)
| Coccinella | ||||||||||||
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Seven-spotted ladybird ( Coccinella septempunctata ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Coccinella | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
Coccinella is a genus of the ladybird family(Coccinellidae). The best-known species of ladybird in this genus is Coccinella septempunctata , the seven-point ladybug .
features
The beetles of the genus have a body length of about 2 to 8 millimeters. Often the basic color is red with black dots and a black pronotum with white spots, legs and other parts of the body are black.
Occurrence
Most of the beetles of the genus are distributed in the Palearctic and occur in Asia , also on the Indian subcontinent, and in Europe . The nearctic species are restricted to Canada and the northern United States . Many species are very common, but some are being pushed back, for example in North America and Europe, by neozoa such as the Asian ladybird Harmonia axyridis, which was introduced to control aphids .
Way of life
The beetles of the genus overwinter in large groups ( called aggregation ), these consist of several hundreds of beetles, but many die in the process from viruses and fungi , etc. All species and their larvae are predatory and hunt aphids .
Systematics
A distinction is made between several sub-genera, including Coccinella in the narrower sense, Chelonitis and Spilota .
European species:
- Ant seven-spotted ladybird ( Coccinella (Coccinella) magnifica ) Redtenbacher, 1843
- Eleven-spotted ladybird ( Coccinella (Spilota) undecimpunctata ) Linnaeus, 1758
- Five-spot ladybird ( Coccinella (Coccinella) quinquepunctata ) Linnaeus, 1758
- Heather ladybug ( Coccinella (Coccinella) hieroglyphica ) Linnaeus, 1758
- Seven-spotted ladybird ( Coccinella (Coccinella) septempunctata ) Linnaeus, 1758
- Coccinella (Coccinella) algerica Kovar, 1977
- Coccinella (Coccinella) genistae Wollaston, 1854
- Coccinella (Spilota) miranda Wollaston, 1864
- Coccinella (Coccinella) saucerottei Mulsant, 1850
- Coccinella (Coccinella) trifasciata Linnaeus, 1758
- Coccinella (Chelonitis) venusta (Weise, 1879)
Non-European species (selection):
- Coccinella alta WJ Brown, 1962 (Canada)
- Coccinella californica Mannerheim, 1843 (North America)
- Coccinella fulgida Watson, 1954 (Canada, Alaska, and Northeast Asia)
- Coccinella johnsoni Casey, 1908 (North America)
- Coccinella lama Kapur, 1963 (India, Tibet)
- Coccinella leonina Linnaeus, 1758 (New Zealand)
- Coccinella luteopicta (Mulsant, 1866) (India, Nepal, Tibet, China)
- Coccinella magnopunctata Rybakow, 1889 (India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Mongolia)
- Coccinella marussii Kapur, 1973 (India, Karakorum -Gebirge)
- Coccinella monticola Mulsant, 1850 (North America)
- Coccinella nepalensis Iablokoff-Khnzorian, 1982 (Nepal)
- Coccinella nigrovittata Kapur, 1963 (India, Tibet, China, Mongolia, Russia)
- Coccinella novemnotata autumn, 1793 (North America)
- Coccinella prolongata Crotch, 1873 (North America)
- Coccinella transversalis Fabricius, 1781 (India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand)
- Coccinella transversoguttata Faldermann, 1835 (India, China, Japan, Siberia, Canada)
Similar species
Many species from other genera of ladybirds look very similar to the Coccinella species, especially the species from the other genera of the subfamily Coccinellinae . Among them is the Asian ladybird ( Harmonia axyridis ), naturalized in Europe and the USA . The Asian ladybird has a number of color variants, the most common variants are often confused with Coccinella septempunctata by laypeople . The two-point ladybird from the genus Adalia differs from the seven-point ladybug at first glance only in the number of points and is often mistaken for a variant. Because of their similar way of life, the two-spot ladybird and the seven-spot ladybird can often be found on the same plants when hunting aphids. Adalia belongs Coccinella the tribe Coccinellini . Psyllobora from the Psylloborini tribe also has some representatives similar to the Coccinella species. However, these do not feed on aphids, but on powdery mildew , a hose fungus .
literature
- Bernhard and Hertha Klausnitzer: Ladybirds . Die Neue Brehm-Bücherei Volume 451, Westarp Wissenschaften, 4th edition, Magdeburg 1997
- J. Poorani: An annotated checklist of the Coccinellidae (Coleoptera) (excluding Epilachninae) of the Indian subregion. Oriental Insects, 36, pp. 307-383, 2002
