How Long Do Ladybugs Live? Do They Live Longer As Pets?

You must have seen these beautiful red beetles with black spots on a leaf in your garden or on the playground as kids, but did you know that this adorable little insect can be a great pet?

Ladybugs come from a species of beetles also known as Coccinellidae. To unravel more facts about this fascinating tiny bug, keep on reading!

Different species of ladybugs can be great pets. These soft-bodied insects that are called pests by few are small, soft, colorful, and require minimal care.

Their natural habitat can be easily mimicked indoors, and you can watch them transform through each life stage before releasing them in the wild world to go into hibernation during the fall months to mate. Ladybugs are one of the most beautiful and adorable insects out there, thanks to their bright red color and black spots.

These garden pests are called pests by many and are calm and docile. These insect plant-eaters are, therefore, great temporary pets favored by farmers.

With a little bit of research about their living habits and nutritional requirements and the right temperature, you can easily be a ladybug parent. Although you might wanna keep in mind that ladybugs have a defense mechanism that can be toxic.

When lady beetles sense that they are in danger, these garden pests release a yellowish liquid from the joints of their knees to prevent them from being eaten by a predator. Although this yellow fluid is not fatal to human beings, it has a bad odor that can bother you.

Apart from that, ladybugs are completely harmless pets. Ladybugs are likely to die in winters due to the absence of aphids, which form a major part of their diet.

After reading all about the lifecycle of ladybugs, check out our other articles like are orange ladybugs poisonous and how many legs does a ladybug have?

How long do ladybugs live indoors?

If you’re looking forward to catching a ladybug and keeping it as your pet, then you might wanna know how long your new pet is going to accompany you. Read further to find out.

Ladybugs might look like soft, delicate bugs, but in fact, these bugs are sturdy and resilient beetles that can withstand a wide range of environmental obstacles.

On average, ladybugs can live up to a year and if well taken care of and provided with proper nutrients, lady beetles can even live up to two years.

But to make sure that your new pet stays healthy for a long time in captivity, you must focus on various factors and you need to put effort into making the right home for the ladybugs that you catch.

Do not leave your ladybug in a small jar or unventilated container for more than a few hours.

There are a lot of good-quality bug boxes available online that can be used to create an indoor habitat for your new pet. You can add tree branches, small rocks, and even some plants or a leaf so that your ladybug feels more at home.

Feed your ladybug every day with soaked raisins and honey or money plant leaves, along with a damp sponge or paper towel to provide it with water.

We understand that it is easy to get attached to a pet but make sure you release your ladybug in the wild at the end of the summer season so that it can gather enough food and hibernate during the winters that would enable it to reproduce and multiply.

Ladybugs emerge in spring and remain active until fall to emerge next spring.

After entering the pupal stage, ladybugs live for around one year.

How long does a ladybug live without food?

As we mentioned above, ladybugs hibernate when the winter sets in, which means going for long periods without any food and can live up to two years. The question is, how long can ladybugs do without any food and nourishment?

Ladybugs might appear like small insects, but these bugs have a large appetite. Ladybugs eat soft-bodied and harmful insects, especially insects that can damage crops like mites, aphids, and mealybugs.

Aphids, mites and mealybugs live on the stem of plants, or you may find them on the underside of a leaf.

This is the reason ladybugs are called farmers’ best friends. Ladybugs can last somewhere between 10-20 weeks without eating any food in the winters because of stored fat reserves in their body; but during the summertime or in springtime, when the weather is warmer, ladybugs can only live up to two days without eating.

Due to the abundance of food available during the summer weather, the tiny beetles hardly ever go without eating food, ladybugs eat up to 50,000 pests during their lifetime. Their preferred taste palette includes other beetles, ladybug larvae, and eggs of other insects and aphids.

But in the absence of these insects, these pests can also survive by feeding on flower nectar, soaked raisins, and honey.

To feed their baby ladybug larvae, ladybugs also sometimes release unfertilized eggs as a source of nutrition in the absence of food. The soft exoskeleton that is revealed dries and hardens, protecting the larva once more until it has grown too big on the inside.

The Complete Ladybug Life Cycle

Now that we’ve learned quite a few things about this beautiful red creature, you might be interested in knowing more about its life cycle and the various stages it goes through in its short 1-2 year life.

In the first stage of the ladybug life cycle, the females lay eggs. These pests can lay as much as fifty eggs in one cluster, and reports suggest that a lady beetle can lay as much as a thousand eggs in one season.

Some of the eggs that are laid in one cluster remain unfertilized and do not hatch, these unfertilized eggs that do not hatch, serve as food and nutrition for the larva as the eggs have a rich amount of protein.

At this stage, if the temperature is right and warm enough, the larva will come out within 8-10 days, depending upon the ladybug species. The mother beetle usually lays the eggs in a very strategic location to ensure that there is plenty of food available for the new ladybug larvae.

After laying the eggs, the female ladybeetle goes through a physical transformation known as metamorphosis. Metamorphosis is also known as the pupal stage, in which abrupt physical change happens after laying eggs.

The larvae that came out of the hatched eggs then grow into fully adult ladybugs and live up to one year. A ladybug can eat up to 50 aphids and eggs each day and as many as 50,000 aphids in its entire lifetime, which makes them a favored pet for people who love gardening or are farmers by profession.

How long can ladybugs live in water? And how do they survive?

If you have ever come across a ladybug floating in water in a small puddle, you may have wondered if the small beetle is capable of swimming, or is it just floating dead?

Ladybugs are not designed to live in water and like all other insects and living organisms, these pests need oxygen to survive.

Ladybugs have a mostly protein-based diet, which enables them to have a large energy reserve that can last up to a few hours, which means that these pests can swim for about an hour before exhausting themselves and then drowning.

But the main problem is not having enough energy to swim, the problem is not getting enough oxygen.

Insects, unlike humans, do not have lungs, but these pests do require oxygen to stay alive. Ladybugs can survive way longer than humans in the absence of air, but even this species would pass out after a maximum of 30 minutes.

So the next time you see a ladybug in a puddle, it is not taking a luxurious swim, but rather suffering, so try to save it but putting it on dry ground.

Caring For A Pet Ladybug

Ladybugs, also popularly known as ladybirds are considered to be a token of good luck in many cultures around the world. If you’re looking forward to getting a ladybug then you must know how to take proper care of it.

Although it can be really difficult to keep an insect healthy and alive inside the house in an artificial habitat, ladybirds are much stronger than any other insect and are much more resilient when it comes to environmental challenges.

To ensure that your ladybug feels at home in its new artificial habitat, for that, you may want to add some shredded paper or some sticks at the bottom of the tank with large pieces of cardboard or rocks so that your precious pet has something to climb on and play around just like the natural world.

You must also take care of your lady beetle’s dietary habits. Although you can feed your ladybugs’ soaked raisins and honey, if you plan to keep your pet for long, then you must find a way to feed your ladybug the food of their taste that these species love the most, aphids.

You must feed up to 50 aphids to your ladybug every day to keep it happy and healthy.

If your ladybug hasn’t moved in a while or looks dead, you may want to rethink if it's really dead or not. It can be tricky to tell if a ladybug is dead or alive but we have an answer for you.

If your ladybug appears to be dead, then you might want to keep in mind the season. If you find a dead-looking beetle in the winter, then the chances are that the ladybug is hibernating.

In winters, ladybugs are more likely to hibernate inside houses than outside in open spaces to avoid winter frost. The best thing to do in such a circumstance is to gently place the insect somewhere warm where it could be safe for the rest of the season.

Did you know that ladybirds can also fake their death? Ladybirds have a special and unique survival technique that allows them to fake their own death.

This species can lay on their backs with all legs completely folded close to their body to mimic a dead insect, this species can also secrete a foul-smelling chemical that makes them smell like they’ve been dead for days.

If you see blood oozing out of their legs, it might mean that they’ve been near a predator or are afraid of you.

The best thing to do in this situation is to leave the poor insect alone as it is probably just scared. Try poking the ladybug with a stick, if it starts to struggle, then you know that it is alive.

You must have heard the silly myth that a ladybug's age can be determined by the number of spots on her shell, the more the number of spots, the older the ladybug. But interestingly, that’s not true.

The spots on the back of a ladybug are hereditary and depend upon genetic information, this has nothing to do with age. But there are a few ways by which you can tell if the ladybird is young or old.

When a ladybird reaches old age, its body shape starts elongating, unlike young insects, which are more round-bodied. The color of their spots and elytra (their reddish shell) starts to fade and appears dull. Slow movement can also be an indication of old age.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for how long do ladybugs live then why not take a look at are ladybugs good luck? Or ladybug facts.