Names  •  Size  •  Shape  •  Elytra (wing cases)   •  Pronotum •  "Melanic" forms

The harlequin ladybird is also known as the multicoloured ladybird, because the colour patterns of these beetles vary so much. The first specimen of Harmonia axyridis (its scientific name) identified by Carl Linnaeus, an 18th-century scientist who named and classified many organisms, was of the chequer pattern colour variant, and so he called it the Harlequin.

In America, it is often called the Halloween ladybug (although it is a beetle, not a bug), since it can been seen gathering in houses about this time of year.