Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle
This week’s arthropod is a lady beetle, most likely a Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle, Harmonia axyridis. When these first started getting into the house, we thought that we were being invaded by a dozen different species, because they vary in their shade of orange and in the number of spots. It turns out it is just an extremely variable species, though.
They are a bit annoying in the house, flying around lights at night, leaving their malodorous little beetle corpses all over, and sometimes giving you a bit of a nip on the arm, but they do tend to keep the aphids down over the summer, so I guess we can live with them.
Update: Here it is, just about two years later. I decided that this entry was way too sketchy for such a common beetle. So, I have written a much more extensive one here, with more and better pictures and much more description.
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That isn’t an Asian lady beetle in the picture. Asian lady beetles have mandibles that protrude from their stinking little faces. I should know, we’re invaded by them every autumn when the farmers harvest all the soybeans.
I think it has its head tucked underneath so you can’t see the mandibles. This was one of my first insect pictures, and I’d been nudging and poking it so much that it was hunkered down and trying to ride things out. They do have large-enough mandibles, one of them bit S_ a while back and she said it was fairly painful.