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Cassida circumdata (larva)
Chrysomelidae; Cassidinae; Cassida circumdata Herbst, 1799. This picture shows the first Tortoise Beetle larva I had ever seen, back in December of 2016. Since then, I have seen many as this species is very common here. The first thing I noticed about its behaviour was the way that it flicked its tail up over its back as it crawled around on a leaf. I remember that I took a short video recording and showed it to family and friends. They were all rather amused when I said that it reminded me of a gentleman raising his hat to ladies. Wikipedia doesn't say much about the larva of C. circumdata, but when I later read the description in Wiki's article on Charidotella sexpunctata (a close relative of C. circumdata), my "conversation piece" about the behaviour of this little creature was dropped and never mentioned again. This is a quotation from Wikipedia: " A larva accumulates its shed skins and frass on a structure called an anal fork, which it positions over its body as a fecal shield, evidently hiding the larva from predators."
Spotted in the rice mill backyard on Potato Vine (Ipomoea aquatica), known as Kangkong in Philippines.
2 Comments
Thanks for your comment, Tom. Just like you, I had never heard of such a thing as a fecal shield. It made me realize that as an amateur dabbling in someone else's science, I have to be careful not to open a Pandora's box. John B.
I've never heard of a fecal shield before. I wondered what those were on Vo Anh Tuan's recent Tortoise Beetle larva spotting.