''Novius koebelei'' is a species of

ladybird beetle Coccinellidae () is a widespread family of small beetles ranging in size from . They are commonly known as ladybugs in North America and ladybirds in Great Britain. Some entomologists prefer the names ladybird beetles or lady beetles as they ...

native to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It is also present in the wild in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, where it is of exotic origin. In New Zealand, it was first reported in 2006, having been found in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

. It has been known under many names; due to variation in its colouration, it has been described as new six times after its original description in 1892.Pang, H., Tang, X.-F., Booth, R.G., Vandenberg, N., Forrester, J., Mchugh, J., & Ślipiński, A. (2020) Revision of the Australian Coccinellidae (Coleoptera). Genus ''Novius'' Mulsant of Tribe Noviini. ''Annales Zoologici'' 70 (1):1–24. https://doi.org/10.3161/00034541ANZ2020.70.1.001 This species was introduced into

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

for biocontrol, alongside ''N. cardinalis''. It is not thought to persist there now, however.The Coccinellidae (Coleoptera) of America North of Mexico, Robert D. Gordon. 1985. Journal of the New York Entomological Society, Vol. 93, No. 1.

Description

Compared to the better-known ''

Novius cardinalis ''Novius cardinalis'' (common names vedalia beetle or cardinal ladybird) is a species of ladybird beetle native to Australia. It was formerly placed in the genus ''Rodolia'', but that genus was synonymized under the genus '' Novius'' in 2020.Pa ...

'', ''koebelei'' typically has much more strongly confluent markings. This often creates a large concurrent red patch on each elytron, though some individuals may be entirely uniform red, and other variants exist.

References

Beetles of Australia Coccinellidae Beetles of New Zealand Beetles described in 1892 {{Coccinellidae-stub