The larvae are important predators, feeding primarily on aphids that attack citrus, subtropical fruit trees, grains, corn, alfalfa, cotton, grapes, lettuce and other vegetables, ornamentals, and many wild host plants of the aphids. The egg is creamy white, microscopically sculptured, elongate oval, about .84 mm in length and .25 mm in diameter. The fleshy conical elevations are surmounted with pale spines, colored green, with two narrow whitish longitudinal stripes flanking the dorsal vessel. As the true pupa inside takes on the black and yellow color of the adult, the color of the puparium changes until all of the green disappears. The puparium length averages 5.25 mm, width 2.5 mm and height 2.3 mm.
Posterior elevation is very gradual.
The adult is 6 to 7 mm long. Eyes of the male are holoptic, those of the female dichoptic. In southern Florida they often are abundant even during the winter months. The life cycle varies from as little as three weeks in summer to nine weeks in winter. The eggs are laid singly on the surface of a leaf or twig which bears aphids.