Schefflera Leaf Visitor

[LittleBits]

Greetings everyone,

We have a rather large Schefflera plant that spends the summers outside and winters inside. It has come down with a scale infestation and is dropping some leaves. One of the leaves I picked up off the floor had a patch of dry crusty stuff on the underside along the margin, so I took a closer look at it. I found this mystery oval shaped thing which I'm guessing is a scale instar, but if anyone knows for sure, I'd love to know! Stacked image taken with a Nikon D850 and Laowa 2.5x-5x at 3x.

Thanks!
Lisa

[MarkSturtevant]

Scale insects are weird. It would help to see a bunch of them at various life stages to learn what is going on. But I suggest this is an immobile female under her protective shell. Males are mobile and can have wings.

[LittleBits]

Thanks, Mark, for the info and possibility of what it might be. Finding the scale at various stages of development and photographing them will be another fun project. It's so interesting!