Yellow Ladybird

As you might have gathered from previous posts we like wildlife, both the adults and the children in the family. The other day we discovered something new about ladybirds and we thought we would share it with you.  

We get quite a few ladybirds in our garden, lots of different colours, and various numbers of spots. They come to feed on the aphids in the garden, as we don't spray, but let nature balance the food chain out.

Ladybird feeding on aphid

We love spotting which ladybirds we've got, and we also look for the ladybird larvae, which if you didn't know, you may not realise are ladybird larva. They are little black creatures with orange markings, they kind of look like spiky beetles, (typically when I want to take a photo I can't find any!) If you have a look at the life cycle picture at the end of this post you will see what they look like.

While in the garden the children found a ladybird pupa, and they very excitedly came to tell me that something was actually coming out of the casing.

New Ladybird Emerging

We watched with interest, and out came what looked like a ladybird, but it was bright yellow with no spots! Now this mystified us, we thought it might be a different type. However after some research we discovered that this is how ladybirds emerge, they emerge yellow. Then over about 24 hours they develop their spots and change colour.

Newly Emerged Yellow Ladybird

So we had all learnt something new, including me! I never knew, until then, that newly emerged ladybirds were yellow, did you? Have you seen one before? 

If you're interested in the  ladybird life cycle we have this printable picture diagram over on the Great Little Minds main site.