Ladybirds belong to Coccinellidae, order Coleoptera, and are predaceous insects. They have been widely used as a biological control tool (Obrycki and Kring, 1998). Cannibalism in Coleoptera has been studied for a fairly long period of time and it is accounted as the most important factor for juvenile coccinellids’ mortality (Wright and Laing, 1982; Schellhorn and Andow, 1999).
In the study of larval cannibalism in ladybirds under laboratory conditions conducted by Michaud (2003), the species of Coccinellidae used were Cycloneda sanguinea, Olla v-nigrum and Harmonia axyridis. One of the experimental set-ups was to test if cannibalism was necessary under variable conditions of food availability and quality. Results showed that when food resources were reduced, there was an increment in incidence of cannibalism. This indicates that aggression between conspecifics is proportionate with levels of hunger, i.e. the level of hunger in insect increases; the level of aggression towards conspecific increases too.