Tagged With: Lady Beetle

Lady Beetle

Lady Beetle

Lady Beetle

I found a lady beetle today. She was nice and bright and crawling around on garlic mustard and mile-a-minute vine. Cute little thing, isn’t she?

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Variegated Lady Beetle

Variegated Lady Beetle

Variegated Lady Beetle

This is a Variegated Lady Beetle (Hippodamia variegata), a non-native species that has only relatively recently (since the 1980s) been found on this side of the Atlantic. Like all the lady beetles, they are predaceous on other insect pests and are welcome in the garden or (as here) the farm.

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Lady Beetle Larva

Lady Beetle Larva

Lady Beetle Larva

It was a beautiful, if somewhat hot afternoon today and I went out into the woods next to my building. As I walked through the underbrush under the sycamore, tulip poplar, redbud, walnut, and black cherry trees, I noticed this little creature on a leaf. This is the larva of a lady beetle. The family Coccinellidae, the lady beetles, has about 6,000 species in 360 genera worldwide and nearly 500 in eastern North America. I have no idea to which of those this larva belongs and I’m not even going to try to figure it out. The adults are generally easier to narrow down but to me, anyway, the larva are just too much alike. I found a key to the larva of North American lady beetles but it starts out as follows. Tell me how helpful this is to you:

Mandible with digitiform teeth, retinaculum absent; terga with scoli, sometimes with parascoli; frontoclypeal suture complete; antenna long, 3 or more times as long as wide, of nearly uniform diameter.

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Aphids and Lady Beetle Larva

Oleander Aphids (Aphis nerii) and Lady Beetle Larva

Oleander Aphids (Aphis nerii ) and Lady Beetle Larva

I mentioned the aphids on the Asclepias curassavica (scarlet milkweed) when I posted the photo of the large milkweed bug a few days ago. Here’s a picture of the aphids. It was fairly dark when I took this (7:45 in the evening) and I used a flash to light them, which allowed me to get reasonable depth of field. I used a flashlight give me enough light to focus, with the camera on a tripod (which I definitely should use more often). As I was taking the pictures, I realized the aphids were not alone. There is a larva of a lady beetle of some sort (probably an Asian lady beetle, Harmonia axyridis), feeding on the aphids. Unfortunately, there are too many aphids for this lone predator, and I’m going to need to take care of them myself.

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Harmonia axyridis (Asian Lady Beetle)

Harmonia axyridis (Asian Lady Beetle)

Harmonia axyridis (Asian Lady Beetle)

This is the “many-named ladybird”. It has been called ‘multicolored’ (or ‘multicoloured’ in Britain), ‘multivariate’, ‘southern’, ‘Japanese’, ‘Asian’, ‘Halloween’, ‘harlequin’ and ‘pumpkin’ ladybird/ladybug/ladybeetle. I’m going with the simple ‘Asian’ and sticking to beetle, because it’s in the order Coleoptera. It’s a largish lady beetle and this particular species is immensely variable. The “standard” is red to red-orange with 18 spots, but as you can see, this one only has 12 (six on each side). The background ranges from a slightly orangy yellow to red and there are even versions with red spots on a black background.

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Harmonia axyridis (Asian Lady Beetle)

Harmonia axyridis (Asian Lady Beetle)

Harmonia axyridis (Asian Lady Beetle)

I went out this morning to bring the recycle bins back from the curb and happened to notice this little Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis) on the hood of my car. So, it’s not a terribly natural setting and I’ve have loved to be able to photograph it on a flower or something, but I’m keeping it real and telling it like it is (or was). These are quite common in our area and can be found pretty much throughout the United States and southern Canada. They are native to eastern Asia from the Altai Mountains to the east coast and Japan. Their spot pattern and colors are extremely variable, including the black spots on an orange base, as seen here, but also black on red, red, orange, or yellow on black, and even solid with no spots.

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