Giant Bamboo Ladybird

Description:

Synonycha grandis (Thunberg, 1781). Until this morning, I had never heard of the Giant Bamboo Ladybird, but it was extremely easy to identify. There were two of them on the branches of the bamboo, just too far apart to get them in the same photo. I was convinced that this was a species of Ladybird, but it just looked so enormous that I thought I must be wrong. When I sorted out my photos, I went online and simply typed in "very big ladybird, possible host bamboo". Immediately, there it was on the screen - Wikipedia, with a picture just like mine and all the information required. If only it could always be so easy :-)

Habitat:

This Giant Bamboo Ladybird was spotted this morning on a clump of bamboo in the rice mill backyard. I have spotted many creatures on the various bamboos around the farm, but this is the first time I have felt compelled to include a photo of the bamboo in my spotting. This Bamboo is called Bambusa blumeana and is locally known as Kawayan Tinik (roughly translates into "Spiny Bamboo").

Notes:

I had a little ruler in my camera bag and this ladybird measured 12 mm long.