I think ladybirds (or as my Nan called them in the her American vernacular – ladybugs) were the very first family of insects I learned to identify as a child. Perhaps bees or ants might have been ever-so-slightly earlier, but ladybirds were close behind them if so. Of course, at that young age I assumed that all ladybirds were alike, having no idea of the variation to be found throughout the world among the Family Coccinellidae – or that there was such a thing as the Coccinellidae, or taxonomic families, or taxonomy for that matter.