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Milkweed Insects garden

What lady beetle species is this?? I need help!

8 months ago

Photo 1: My only option for containment for this specimen was a Slimy Gloop putty case.

I found this little guy on a common milkweed plant in my neighbor's yard, who was eating on the milkweed. I later captured it and peacefully froze it. I live in central Minnesota, USA, and have found no species that have matched up with it online. This lady beetle was the only lady beetle like this on the plant, many being Asian lady beetles or other related or non-related species/subspecies. I let the specimen sit in the freezer for about a week, then removed it, and thawed it for this post today. As a person interested in ornithology and botany, I have limited knowledge of insects, besides hornets, wasps, and mostly bumblebees. Here's its description using a ruler... (it may not be exactly accurate, since it is rounded up for some data).

General description:

0.5 cm or 0.2-3 in long, 0.2 cm or 0.07-0.10 in wide, 7 black spots, tan-ish center, with light to medium orange sides, and a head mix of white and black markings (not describable in words, the same for most lady beetles, but rather photos may show the markings in a good format).

Photo 2: Side view for better details. The markings make it look like a cat almost...

Does anybody know what species it could be?

Thanks!! :)

Jalisco Pine

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Comments (5)

PRO
The Logician LLC
8 months ago
Perhaps a variant of this:

https://bugguide.net/node/view/3542/bgimage?from=288

https://bugguide.net/node/view/1613787/bgimage

^note on this one the black patches nearest the head are not fused, or continuous,

unlike many of the examples in this genus.

The spotting is highly variable in this genus.
Jalisco Pine
Original Author
8 months ago
Thanks! Will check the links out!
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Jalisco Pine
Original Author
8 months ago
After more research, the specimen appears to be a color variation of Hippodamia variegata (Variegated Lady Beetle) as seen similar in this image from iNaturalist:

I may be wrong though...
PRO
The Logician LLC
8 months ago
I could not find the image you provided on iNaturalist, that apparently has an infinite number of photo submissions per species, I ran out of time to continue scrolling.

I still prefer the genus Coccinella ID from bugguide as it has the two-toned wing covers (elytra) and where the two wing covers meet, the darker of the tones forms a line. This is lacking on the variegated species.

I do prefer the photo you supplied the most, but if this was in a huge batch of submissions to iNaturalist, it may be there in error. Bugguide does not claim to be infallible, but its submissions are reviewed by experts. Note that the bugguide images all resemble your beetle more closely than the iNaturalist images.
Jalisco Pine
Original Author
8 months ago
last modified: 8 months ago
I see what you mean now with the variegated lady beetle ID. I caught one today on the same milkweed plant patch, and it is very much distinctive from the specimen I had collected. I also took a closer look at the species on Bugguide, and it does look more similar characteristic-wise.

The iNaturalist image had came from the cover of the species on the Google Images platform, though it may have been an error, like you suggested, since there are hundreds of images for the variegated lady beetle on the site. Thanks for your help!!

Jalisco Pine :)

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