Oh Good: Swarms Of Ladybirds Are Gathering Around UK Homes At The Moment

Ladybird swarmRecently, I’ve seen more social media posts than I ever expected to (read: one or more) about swarms of ladybirds gathering ’round people’s homes. “Only see the occasional ladybird nowadays, well that certainly changed today. I saw thousands of them,” one X user wrote on Tuesday. “I’ve never seen so many ladybirds on my house,” another poster said on the same day. Above pictures of bug-covered windowsills, he joked, “It’s definitely nicer than flying ant day.” But not all netizens were as optimistic. A TikToker claimed “infestations” of these bugs carried “STDs”.So what’s going on, and how much do we need to worry?#Ladybirds! It’s hard to tell from this but the front wall of the house is alive with them today! Several seem to have found their way indoors too. pic.twitter.com/ww0HvtGju7— Lesley Rawlinson (@lesleysworld) October 6, 2025These are “harlequin” ladybirdsMostly found in the South-East of the UK (though they’re increasingly reported around the Midlands, too), these ladybirds are the “harlequin” variety. This is a non-native species that came here in 2004. Max Barclay, Senior Curator of Beetles at The Natural History Museum, said: ”Harlequin ladybirds are pretty distinctive, even though they have lots of colour forms. You can find different varieties, from orange ones, black one with red spots and more.″’But whereas the native ladybirds are black on the underneath and have black legs, most of the harlequin ladybirds are orange on the underneath and have orange legs.” Tim Coulson, professor of zoology and head of biology at the University of Oxford, told The Independent that these species “swarm” homes because they’re looking for somewhere cosy to lie low over winter. That’s because all ladybirds enter “diapause,” a kind of insect hibernation, round about now. In the wild, Professor Coulson said, they’d usually “choose places like under bark in a pile of leaves, anywhere providing a bit of shelter and away from things that might eat them”. But when they see houses, they’re tempted to enter this “safe haven” too. What about the STDs?! Yes, some harlequin species carry a “fungus that forms little scales on the wing cases on the outside of the ladybird,” Barclay said. This is indeed a ladybird STD. But the idea that we could catch the disease (which also affects native species) is “ridiculous,” the curator added. As he said, “It is a fungus that grows on the exoskeleton and we don’t have one of these, and we don’t have sex with ladybirds.” What if I find a swarm of ladybirds around my home? It might seem a little scary, but they can’t hurt us, and are about to be very still and quiet for the next few months. So, experts advise leaving them alone if you can, and gently moving them to another sheltered place like a shed if you can’t.“Be good to ladybirds as they are both beautiful and the gardeners’ friend, keeping numbers of plant sucking bugs like aphids in check as they are voracious carnivores,” Tom Hibbert from The Wildlife Trust told the BBC.Related...Are Daddy Longlegs Really 'The Most Venomous Spider In The World'?The 2 Overlooked Insects Your Garden Could Save From ExtinctionI Just Found Out Millipedes Aren't Insects, And I Can't Believe Their Relatives

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