Back in June, I shared a post showing an interesting insect that I found on one of my hikes. It turned out to be a larval seven spotted ladybug (Coccinella septempunctata), which was a surprise to me and to many of you. It looked more like a caterpillar than it did a ladybug, but it was definitely still very pretty. At the end of July, I found another insect that I took to be some sort of beetle that I was not familiar with. I took quite a few photos that day, and I didn’t rush to identify this beetle. Then I sort of forgot about it until I was reading the post of a fellow blogger, and he was writing about finding a larval lady bug in his yard. Low and behold, it was the same “bug” I remembered seeing! I had to write him a note thanking him for sharing that and inadvertently helping me with my identification. So now today, I’m presenting my little baby lady bug.

The larva in my first post was a first or second instar, while this one is a fourth instar, probably close to pupating. The two of them look quite different with the fourth instar looking much more like an adult. If you look at the two of them together, though, you can kind of see how it could make those changes. The most interesting thing to me is that this change occurs over the course of only about 15 days. To do that these little larvae eat a lot. They’re particularly fond of aphids, but they will eat all sorts of small insects, including later hatching siblings on day one.

I was really excited when I discovered what this little beetle was and I’m really pleased that I can now show you three of the four life stages of a ladybug (I’m still missing eggs), and even show you how the larvae change. I think that’s pretty cool, especially since everyone loves a ladybug.