Mealybug-eating ladybird Hi, my name is Linda and I’m your best friend if you have plants that suffer from mealybug attack. My little baby sisters and I love to eat mealybugs, they are like little balls of white fairly floss. My second favourite food is Pulvinaria scales like cottony scale in citrus and other soft scales. Since my brother Luke also likes scale I leave them for him to eat if there are enough mealybugs around. I am delivered to you in a small plastic container with 39 of my sisters and we rapidly go to work finding mealybugs to eat and laying our eggs into mealybug egg masses. Our babies then hatch 2-3 weeks later and sometimes they can be confused with mealybugs because they look similar, like little white balls of fluff; but they move much faster on plants. Tap 1-2 of my sisters out of the plastic container very close to a mealybug infestation. My sisters and I will feed on up to 40m2 of garden infested with mealybugs.