Eggs

• Adult female ladybugs lay their eggs on the underside of leaves, in the midst of aphid colonies. Placement on the bottom side of leaves protects the eggs from consumption by predators. Three to five days later, the ladybug eggs, which are tiny, orange and shaped like footballs, hatch and begin to feast on the aphids they're surrounded by.
  
  

Larvae

• When ladybugs emerge from their eggs, they do not look like miniature adult ladybugs. Instead, they are tiny orange-and-black wormlike creatures that feast constantly on aphids. Ladybug larvae are capable of consuming up to 400 aphids in two to three weeks, before they go into a brief hibernation and transform into their familiar adult shape.
  
  

Pupation

• After feasting on aphids, ladybug larvae attach themselves to a leaf and begin to pupate. During this stage, the larvae transform themselves from black-and-orange cylindrical creatures to red half-dome creatures with recognizable black spots on their bodies and white spots near their heads. The entire process usually takes less than four weeks.
  
  

Adults

• As adults in the wild, ladybugs can live productive lives, protecting plants from the destructive forces of aphids. Although most ladybugs live for about a year, species such as the Asian lady beetle will survive for up to three years in the right conditions. Adult ladybugs protect themselves from predators with their colorful markings, by playing dead when threatened and secreting a foul-tasting liquid from between their legs. Should a predator eat a ladybug when it is secreting the liquid, that predator will be unlikely to eat another ladybug again.