Ladybird

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leonardturner
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Ladybird

Post by leonardturner »

2020-05-30-10.28.12 DMapWCdenoise sharp2internal contrastWWS192-2220.jpg
Mitty 5X, Trond lights

I escorted this handsome fellow, along with several friends and/or relatives, off the well-nibbled leaves of my tomato plants. Causality is suspected but not proven; the plants do look better now.

Leonard

rjlittlefield
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Re: Ladybird

Post by rjlittlefield »

Nice image!

As for causality, sometimes it is very difficult to tell one's friends from one's enemies. Ladybird beetles are strictly predators. They eat other animals that eat plants. Of course this means they are often found around damaged areas of plants, and that association causes a lot of confusion. It doesn't help that ladybird beetles are highly visible and are active when we are, while plant-nibblers often are cryptic and work at night while we're asleep.

--Rik

leonardturner
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Re: Ladybird

Post by leonardturner »

Thank you, Rik. I wondered if this might be one of the vegetarian variants in my area of the country. The entomology department at the University of Florida has this on a website I recently Googled:
(a) Pest Species - Feeding on Plants
Adults and larvae of the subfamily Epilachninae feed on plants. In Florida, this subfamily is represented only by Epilachna borealis (Fabricius) and E. varivestis Mulsant. Epilachna borealis, the squash beetle, feeds on members of the squash family (Cucurbitaceae), and in Florida is restricted to the north, with a wide distribution in other states of the eastern USA. Epilachna varivestis, the Mexican bean beetle, feeds on members of the bean family (Leguminosae), and rarely has been found south of northern Florida. It is native to southern Mexico, but it is an immigrant to the USA, first detected in the west in 1849, and in northern Florida in 1930. Now, its distribution is from Costa Rica north through Mexico to the Rocky Mountain states of the USA, and with a separated eastern population (which extends southward to northern Florida). In Florida it can be controlled efficiently by releases of the parasitoid wasp Pediobius foveolatus (Crawford) (Eulophidae) (Nong and Bennett 1994), which have to be made annually in the northeastern USA (Stevens et al. 1975) because of the more severe climate. It was discussed by Sanchez-Arroyo (2009).


A University of Kentucky website treats E. borealis as a 7 spot Ladybird variant, but there be some disagreement amongst entomologists--of which I am certainly not one--as to classification.

Leonard

rjlittlefield
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Re: Ladybird

Post by rjlittlefield »

Very interesting -- I stand corrected!

Wikipedia has an article, of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilachninae .

At BugGuide, the subfamily has a root at https://bugguide.net/node/view/340378 .

Can we see a whole-body shot of your beast?

--Rik

leonardturner
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Re: Ladybird

Post by leonardturner »

2020-06-26-06.01.46 DMap 4539-4602W.jpg
Rik, I did not have an overall shot, but the remains of one of the beetles from an earlier shoot was found and the above made of the dessicated remains. These guys were a bit bigger than the usual ladybirds around here. Image was by way of a 5X Mitty on a Rayox intermediate, and is shown full frame. I was struck by the 3-dimensionality of the dark spots.

Leonard

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Re: Ladybird

Post by rjlittlefield »

Leonard, thanks for the full-body shot.

The full-body beast does not look to me like a ladybird beetle (Coccinellidae). The overall shape seems too elongated and the surface too sculptured, both in the 3-dimensionality of the dark spots and in the overall texture of small pits.

Instead, the full-body beast looks more like some sort of leaf beetle (Chrysomelidae). If the host plant were any squash and the head were black, I would suggest a "spotted cucumber beetle", Diabrotica undecimpunctata, for example as in https://bugguide.net/node/view/446905/bgimage . On tomato, and if the whole-body beast has an orange head, I don't know.

I'm wondering now if you have more than one kind of beetle.

BTW, if you do have a plant-eating ladybird, that could be an issue of concern. In skimming papers about Epilachninae, I see that there are some Asian species that are pests on Solanaceae, but I did not run into anything that said those are in the U.S. yet. The ones that we have are noted for feeding on other things, like alfalfa and beans and squash (three species of Epilachna). Though I did see one report at BugGuide of Epilachna borealis "believe it was eating the leaf of an Eggplant plant", which would also be Solanaceae.

--Rik

iconoclastica
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Re: Ladybird

Post by iconoclastica »

Those jaws look piercing rather than scissorlike. Doesn't that say: predator?
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Guppy
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Re: Ladybird

Post by Guppy »

Very nice and interesting pictures

Kurt

leonardturner
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Re: Ladybird

Post by leonardturner »

2020-07-01-14.30.05 retouched -07-01-12.29.23 DMap 5702-5727--07-01-14.20.03 DMap 5702-5748W DEN copy.jpg
2020-07-01-15.50.21 DMap 5678-5696.jpg
My thanks for all comments.

Rik, the second wave has now hit, and I believe I have caught one in flagrante:

I agree that this is probably an Epilancha, similar to, if not, borealis, referred to in BugGuide as a "squash lady beetle" as well as a "ladybug".

The first shot is of the larval form; not pretty, but appears well-defended, at least against smaller predators!

Leonard

leonardturner
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Re: Ladybird

Post by leonardturner »

I should have noted that the larva in the last post was living; its movement degraded that stack and required the joining of two different partial stacks to produce the image.

Leonard

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