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Project Noah Nature School
Chilocorus cacti
southern US, South America and the Caribbean. Normally on Prickly Pear cacti and various trees, especially coconut palm trees.
This was confusing at first because there is a similar form of Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle, and I some other color variants of the Asian on this same tree this morning. However, I noticed at home that these did not have any of the tell tale white marks on the head. The good people at bugguide, IDed it for me.
Spotted on Jan 3, 2013
Submitted on Mar 3, 2013
2 Comments
Beautiful spotting, Livian! Interesting to hear about the fungus!
Also note, I forgot to mention, in pic 3 you can see the beginnings of Hesperomyces fungus growing on the wing covers. See more about this fungus here:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/278155
Not sure if it is the species of fungus discussed here, since the Lady Beetle is not the same species.