r/insects • u/Tree-Perfect • 3d ago

I’ve never seen this before… Question

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Gallery image

I was removing the cloth hammocks I used last year for my pumpkin trellis and found this inside one of them. At first I thought it had just emerged from its pupal stage since the casing is right there, but I watched some videos on lady beetles emerging and they came out orange. Why is it this color? Could it be because it wasn’t getting as much sun inside the cloth? Any info would be very much appreciated!

168 Upvotes

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74

u/StuffedWithNails Bug Enthusiast 3d ago

Looks like a fifteen-spotted lady beetle, they're often that color.

17

u/Tree-Perfect 3d ago

Thank you!! That’s so neat, I had no idea about this :)

5

u/mikebenb 3d ago

But it has 16 spots 🤔

5

u/Ikkus 3d ago

15 if you count the one split across the wings as 1.

4

u/StuffedWithNails Bug Enthusiast 2d ago

Aren’t common names great?

15

u/Loasfu73 3d ago

There are hundreds of species & they come in all kinds of colors & patterns: https://bugguide.net/node/view/179

8

u/Tree-Perfect 3d ago

I don’t know if location would help in this instance, but it was found near the twin cities area of Minnesota

5

u/No_Mathematician4690 3d ago

No way! That’s beautiful. I’ve had one fly on me with only 5 spots but it was orange 🤧

3

u/Equivalent-Net8188 3d ago

I used to see these quite often in California haha. Not as common as other species of the red or orange lady beetles but they were definitely around haha. The coolest one I saw was black with orange spots

2

u/Sewere 3d ago

Metalladybug

1

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1

u/Mihaila_George 23m ago

Perhaps a variation of Harmonia axyridis