Little Garden Dwellers

Ladybugs, ladybirds

 I am still not sure if the above is really a ladybird beetle. It looks rightly so with 6 red design patches.  But those in the lists are mostly with dots, the designs here are irregularly shaped. I hope someone will be able to identify it too! My search led to my identification of this as a Harlequin ladybird or Harmonia axyridis,  a Northern Asian native but now spread to US and UK presumably to control aphids.

 The first time I saw one of these ladybugs a few months ago, i asked a blogger friend from UK for its ID, and when she also didn't know it I posted it in Project Noah, where some people identified it. Caroline Gill gave me the description that it is a testudinate ladybug because the design looks like a turtle.  I learned from Project Noah that it is Heteroneda reticulata. The projects review in our office last week corrected my previous knowledge on this ladybug. I learned the correct name of this as a coccinellid netted lady beetle or Heteroneda billardieri Crotch. I have then to correct the entry at the Project Noah post too.

 A scientist reported culturing this as a botanical control. That led me to look for it among our very well psyllid infested ipil-ipil (Leucaena leucocephala) in the property. My nephew actually told me he saw lots of them there, and true enough I saw a few of them there, these two are actually in one plant. I even brought 4 of them to my garden, i hope they will multiply and also eat the aphids and mealy bugs.

This one looks like the ladybug, but it is not. Those antennae make the difference.