Physonota Tortoise Shell Beetle

Description:

A wonderfully patterned Tortoise Beetle that I've never seen before. About 1 cm long, which is large for a Tortoise Beetle. From the front, you can see the little windows in its "helmet" with its eyes watching. The color and the irregular non-symetrical markings on the elytra make this beetle look like a bird dropping. Family Chrysomelidae, Subfamily Cassidinae. Species of this genus have the peculiarity of passing through a marked color change in the adult beetle, something rarely seen in most insects (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3999574?seq=...). The pattern shown here is an intermediate phase which lasts about 3 weeks. I watched this beetle change color to a metallic green over a period of 5 weeks. See this spotting, which documents the color changes observed (http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/120...).

Habitat:

Landed on a red motorcycle parked by the highway, Km 17.5, between San Cristobal de Las Casas and Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, 1,164 meters. I've returned to the same area several times and haven't yet found the host bush.

Notes:

A similar species (Physonota helianthi) is known as the Sunflower Tortoise Beetle and feeds on leaves of Helianthus. Charley Eiseman showed the intermediate and final color changes for this species, as well as great pictures of the larvae, showing how they hide under self-made shields of their own defecation (https://bugtracks.wordpress.com/2016/01/...). This genus is also interesting in that the female covers her egg mass with a silk net (http://bugguide.net/node/view/959100/bgi...