|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
You can find Part 1 of this series here.
We ended the last blog post with the discovery of a clump of ladybug eggs on a stem of aphid-infested goldenrod.
I watched a cool but creepy video to get an idea of what to expect and looked for the eggs to start turning brown. Just one day after I took the above photo, the eggs began to change color and tiny larvae hatched out of them.
A few hours later you could see the ladybug larvae milling around, trying to get whatever leftover nutrients they could from the eggs.
Some of you may be wondering what this thing is!
It turns out that is an older ladybug larva, come to eat its favorite food. If the larvae don’t hatch quickly enough, they are liable to be eaten by their brethren!
In just a few hours, all of the eggs have hatched or been eaten. The larvae are still quite small, smaller than the aphids they are supposed to eat. But they have gotten much darker. They were born around 7:30 am and this picture was taken at 1 pm.
Over the next day they started to spread out a bit, exploring their environs and looking for something to eat.
Two days after hatching they are learning to eat aphids, probably out of a mix of desperation and instinct. These larvae are eating machines.
As they grow they shed their skin, or molt, a total of about four times. You can see in the picture above on the right how one of the larvae looks ready to burst out of its skin, just two day after hatching. That is how much these larvae eat. You can see their post-molt look in the photos below.
I have lots more larvae photos to show you, but to give you a break, I found a lot of other things on these goldenrods, including some slime-like creatures. I don’t know what they are. (But if you do, I would love to hear!) In general, the goldenrod was teeming with life.
Right around this time I figured out how to take proper macro shots with my phone’s camera. So I got this nice closeup of a slime, though I still don’t know what it is, or what the black goo is.
The tall goldenrod plants had so much going on, but from a distance there was nothing to see. The plumbago on the left was lifeless (but attractive), while the goldenrod in the middle was rife with insect activity.
Okay, back to the ladybug larvae now. A week after hatching they are in their third larval stage (aka third “instar”).
When they molt they discard their previous form. You can see a shed piece of skin below.
Around 8-10 days after hatching they are nearing their full size.
At this point I started to worry that there weren’t enough aphids to sustain them. The goldenrod was stripped, with only the husks of aphids remaining.
The larvae were running up and down the goldenrod looking for aphids, and clustering on the few stems with aphids remaining.
A new kind of aphid appeared on the second goldenrod patch in the side yard — black bean aphids — but there weren’t many and they quickly disappeared.
Pretty soon the larvae had disappeared. Weeks went by and I didn’t see any, or any of the pupas they are ultimately supposed to form. I had gone from worrying that I had too many aphids to disappointed that I had too few! By mid-August, the goldenrod was blooming and beautiful, but devoid of ladybug life.
I had hoped to end this series with some photos of pupas and ladybugs. But maybe instead it will be a story of the challenge of sustaining biodiversity ….
To be continued in Part 3.
Current Climate Data
Global impacts (July 2025), US impacts (July 2025), CO2 metric, NOAA climate dashboard
In case you don’t read some of those links, we learn that “Record overnight warmth dominated the eastern U.S. in July and multiple regions across the country were impacted by flash flooding”, including “catastrophic flooding in the Texas Hill Country in early July resulted in at least 135 fatalities, following extreme rainfall of up to 20 inches over just a few days.”
Want to be Notified of New “A New Shade of Green” Blog Posts?
If you would like to be notified of new blog posts, please send an email to notify@newshadeofgreen.com with “Subscribe” in the subject.
Comment Guidelines
I hope that your contributions will be an important part of this blog. To keep the discussion productive, please adhere to these guidelines or your comment may be edited or removed.
- Avoid disrespectful, disparaging, snide, angry, or ad hominem comments.
- Stay fact-based and refer to reputable sources.
- Stay on topic.
- In general, maintain this as a welcoming space for all readers.
Pleasanton man accused of DUI in deadly crash on Crow Canyon Road in San RamonNovember 29, 2025 6:07 pm