Spotted ladybug

''I caught a ladybug! S-so small! S-so cute!- Animal Crossing: City Folk''

The ladybug, also known as the ladybird or ladybeetle, is a small, black and red insect that appear throughout spring and summer. They can also been seen in October. Ladybugs crawl on any sort of flower, but fly away if approached too suddenly.

Upon Donation in City Folk
Blathers, the curator of the museum, speaks of the ladybug when it is handed to him for donation;

"Mad as it sounds, I find a lone ladybug quite fetching... But they tend to cluster in cold weather. If you were to flip over a rock in winter, you might see the underside crawling with them... Such vileness! Bleeeech! The very thought gives me the quivers!"

The ladybug can be found sitting on a flower on the lower terrace of the insect room.

Further Information
There are roughly 5000 species of ladybug, Coccinellidae, worldwide. The ladybug represented in the Animal Crossing series is the Coccinella septempunctata, the seven-spot ladybug. It lives almost anywhere where there are aphids, its main prey, to eat. Ladybugs are considered by many to be beneficial to plants due to their eating habits- aphids themselves eat plants, so by introducing ladybugs, plants can be protected. The seven-spot itselfy was introduced to North America in this manner.

Ladybugs can lay several dozen eggs, which hatch after a period of 3 to 4 days. A number of infertile eggs are also released by ladybugs in order to provide food for their young- when food is scarce, the number of infertile eggs is much greater than the number of fertile ones.