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"One of the more successful deliberately imported lady beetles is an Australian beetle, first introduced into California in 1892 to control mealybugs. Beetles of this species, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri, nicknamed "Crypts" by insectary workers, are odd-looking lady beetles, quite unlike our familiar spotted aphid-eaters. The adults are 3 or 4mm long, velvety black with a reddish abdomen, and the larvae are covered with white waxy filaments and look more like their mealybug prey than other lady beetle larvae. They can be easily purchased here in Canada, and apparently are so effective they wipe out their entire food supply and have to be re-introduced to control the next mealybug infestation. Although crypts are known to occur in the wild in the United States, they probably cannot survive outside greenhouses in Ontario."
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Phylum Arthropoda 
Class Insecta 
Discover Life
