What bugs are these?

They're out the front of our house. The babies look like lady bugs, and the adults walk around attatched by their backside (I don't think they're mating). They're red and black, and today they were eating a dead moth; they don't eat plants.

Could be a species of Lady bugs most Lady bugs dont eat plants at all. I only know of two species of lady beetles in Kentucky that are plant eaters.

Lady bugs are infact relentless predators. A single lady bug may consume as many as 5,000 aphids in its lifetime.

They may seem harmless (inpart to the name I guess) to us but they are like uber lions of the insect world.

My Mum's the one that wants to know, I said to her before that they're probaly lady bugs but she disagrees.

The adult ones, they're big, and their body is pretty far off the ground for a bug.

Heres a few pictures of some different types

www.uky.edu...

Look like any of those?

Also what was its basic body shape round like a classic ladybug or more elongated?

[edit on 30-11-2005 by ShadowXIX]

It's body is elongated, and none of those pictures look like it.

Originally posted by Nventual
They're out the front of our house. The babies look like lady bugs, and the adults walk around attatched by their backside (I don't think they're mating). They're red and black, and today they were eating a dead moth; they don't eat plants.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words...

What does the adults look like?

I would say that they are in fact mating, as that would be the only reason two adult bugs would walk around attached by their backsides. Ladybugs however mate male on top of the female, and not back-to-back.

Ladybug mating

That said, remember that there are many different species of ladybugs.
Take a look at this chart. These are all ladybugs and many of them aren't even red and black. There are about 350 different species of lady beetles in North America. Pictured here are only 24 different species.

Chart of ladybugs - incomplete

An important thing about ladybugs is their shape. Adults have a very characteristic convex, hemispherical to oval body shape. The head is covered by a hood called the pronotum. Are they "round" or have a longer shape? This might be a leading clue.
BUT this is also a lady bug.

Also all species of ladybugs have short legs. This separates them from other beetles.

They also cluster together in groups. Clustering seems to benefit these small insects in several ways: Each ladybug has a foul smell and taste of its own, so when thousands are together in a cluster the smell is greatly amplified and discourages many predators.

How do you know the others are "babies"? Are they a lot smaller than the "adults"? I ask this because most beetles - including ladybugs - have larva.

its a stinkbug probably...look it up on google images. I used to see them all the time around my school when i was little

Originally posted by Gemwolf

Ladybug mating

How do you know the others are "babies"? Are they a lot smaller than the "adults"? I ask this because most beetles - including ladybugs - have larva.

Doesn't look like that.
I'll make a really bad photoshop of it two lady bugs to show you what I mean.
I call them "babies" because they're alot smaller and actually look like small lady bugs.

Try to get a picture, so people can see what it is, that will help to actually figure it out better.

No Captino, looks nothing like that.
I don't have a camera, and they don't look like these lady bugs but this is how more than half of them are walking around.

Yep, they're doing the nasty alright! LoL!

Could you try your hand at MS Paint or Photoshop or whatever and make a crude drawing?

Do they have a bad/strange smell? Do they cluster? How does the "babies" differ in shape and/or color from the adults?

I can't draw if my life counted on it, but I'll try and do a quick sketch of the babys and adults.

The front of the bug is on an elevation, like it's front legs are longer than it's back. It has long antlers and they tend to hang in groups.

The baby one is on the left, the adult on the right. They're not to scale though lol.
That's what the patterns look like, too.

Right....

Here's some candidates...

The Red and Black Beetle... (Clever name, heh)



Unknown beetle: Large pic...
Propable suspect - Red and black beetle (Unknown name)

Australian beetle (Coleoptera: Oedemeridae) - Unlikely


Unknown:


Jewel beetle:


Which one has the closest resemblance?

Could it be Fire Bug (Pyrrhocoris apterus)? (couldn't put the picture here)

Looks most like this picture.

Which, funnily enough, is the unknown one.
The "fire bug" doesn't have the same pattern, but that unknown one looks kinda the same.

Any more news on this? Been 24 hours.

I am pretty sure you are seeing what us in Florida call love bugs, their natural habitat seems to be the front of automobiles…







[edit on 12/1/2005 by defcon5]

They sound exactly like what we used to see as kids all the time in Oz, especially the "pushme-pullyou" pairing bit for the adults and that little drawing looks like it as well.

I have no idea what they are called, but they definitely ain't ladybugs.

My memories are of summer nights (daylight saving rocks!) on the front or back verandah, watching them come and go among the plants and rocks.

Used to sit for hours watching them walk around in pairs with one walking backwards, fascinating to a 7 - 9 year old!