Cryptolaemus Montrouzieri

a beetle of the family Coccinellidae (ladybugs). The body is 3–4 mm long; the head, pronotum, and apexes of the elytra are reddish yellow, and the rest of the body is black.

C. montrouzieri is a natural destroyer of scale insects, which are pests of many cultivated plants. It is native to Australia and has been introduced into a number of countries. It was brought into the USSR (Abkhazia) in 1933 to control a most serious pest of tangerines, the citrophilus mealybug, and later to control other species of scale insects. The female Australian ladybug C. montrouzieri lays up to 300 eggs in the scale insect’s eggs. The hatched larvae eat the eggs of the scale insect; adult larvae and beetles feed on scale insects and their larvae. In Abkhazia C. montrouzieri yields three generations a year. The insect does not tolerate temperatures under 0°C; therefore, in the Caucasus it is propagated in the winter in laboratories, and the beetles are released into orchards and plantations when eggs of the first generation of scale insects appear. C. montrouzieri can be used only in a moist climate.