Ladybird larvae and pupae:: 2 Subgalleries

The difference between the beautiful adult ladybird that we all know and love and the larvae and pupae is a huge difference.
It is the ugly duckling and the swan scenario.
The larvae of a ladybird is a voracious fast hunter; killing and devouring its prey of aphids and greenfly swiftly, quickly moving on to the next meal.
They can move quickly amongst the nettles and brambles for which they live on.

The larvae after days of feeding will find a leaf quite often in the open and begin to pupate, where his outer body skin hardens in a similar way our fingernails.
It can still sense predators and will waggle its tail end furiously to scare away prey.

It then lightens from the black and red to an orange, when it emerges the ladybird doesn't have any spots till its fully dry, making it very vulnerable to predators.

This is a gallery depicting the life cycle of the ladybird from larvae to beautiful adult ladybird.

The separate galleries here are a ladybird hatching in a complete photographic sequence!

:: Ladybird Emerging gallery 1! ::	:: Ladybird emerging gallery 2 ::	ladybird larvae portrait!	Ladybird larvae eating an aphid!	ladybird larvae.
Harlequin Ladybird larvae on a nettle stem!	Hoverfly and the ladybird pupae!	ladybird pupae under a leaf.	Ladybird pupae under a bramble leaf.	Ladybird getting ready to pupate in aggressive pose..
2nd stage ladybird pupae.	Ladybird pupae stage.	pupae breaking.jpg