I was thinking of frassing this one. With about 150 images of adults of this species we hardly need one like this that isn't even properly cropped. Actually, the tiny mites, visible only in the enlarged image may be more interesting than the beetle.

I didn't see those at all. Yeah, there might be enough detail to ID them if they were at the forefront of a cropped image.

I was hanging onto this because I've been on the lookout for Harmonia conformis, one of the common names of which is "cream-streaked lady beetle," and I thought this one looked pretty pale and streaky. On further review, it can't be that species; H. conformis has two rows of black markings on the pronotum.

of pupa cases, some with and some without spots. What I meant was that it looked as if it hadn't fully come into its coloring. And that white pronotum is strange. All the pics I have seen of lady beetles don't show such an abundance of white. It certainly caught my attention when shooting it.

it may have been a very new adult. I've seen them take more than 24 hours to get as dark as they're going to be. Some that are fully colored have ghostly almost-spots, just slight suggestions of spots.

Here's a similar one:

to species. Better photo, too. Except for coloring these two could pass for twins. Thanks G!

Harmonia axyridis, indeed. Not for nothing are they called multicolored!

The markings and color of the pupa don't always match the adult - here's a six-spotted pupa that produced a 19-spotted adult:

sometimes. I had a much closer, clearer photo of the same species from early September with the same spot pattern, only a good deal stronger. It has the same over-all coloring. As for pupae, I think I will make a greater effort at finding and picturing them come the spring. We obviously have a large number of different species in this area, from totally black to almost no black, from very light orange to blood red. Just what I needed, another bug addiction LOL.

Utterly fascinated by these beautiful and variable little beetles! Sometimes individuals of the same species hardly look like each other, but closely resemble completely different species. And they're oh-so-much-more than red, orange, and black; yellow, pink, brown, gray, purple, even blue. And the markings can be squares, diamonds, hearts, semicircles, commas, wavy lines, stripes...oh, my goodness, I just love the ladies!

think you maybe liked these little critters, Abigail.;-)