A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Calvia quatuordecimguttata
4.5 to 5.5 mm in length. Color and pattern varies widely.
I photographed this insect at the edge of an urban yard and deciduous forest.
Good catch. My guidebook doesn't have the cream-colored lady beetle in it, nor does it reference it as a similar looking species. Usually I try to check out two resources if I run across something unfamilar--bugguide.net is one of my favorites--but didn't do that in this instance. Insects are so much fun to ID! Thanks for your help.
This beetle had a difficult time getting out of the pupa, it seems, with those narrow wrinkled wings. That makes it look less like a Cream-spotted Lady Beetle, which is typically a round, glossy beetle. The markings are very similar to the Spotted Lady Beetle but there are some key differences - especially, the second row of spots has two spots on each side, not one large spot. The BugGuide.net page for C. quatuordecimguttata has a short section about how to tell it from C. maculata. It's definitely a close lookalike!
http://bugguide.net/node/view/26792
Spotted on Jun 15, 2012
Submitted on Jun 15, 2012
