Bug Query with Pictures
Hi!
I was browsing through your site, with great enjoyment, after we found some 30 to 50 of a particular bug on one of our flower plants. Unfortunately, the site is too large for me to do an exhaustive search (although I did look through all 10 beetle pages and a few others). The closest match seemed to be a ladybird pupa, but the picture wasn’t clear enough for me to be certain, and the markings were different (which would be no surprise, given the variation among ladybird beetles). They do seem rather larger than the ladybird beetles we’re used to seeing. We’re in the middle of a city, western Los Angeles, California (90210). In any case, we’d like to find out what these are. They’re black with orange markings, 8-10 cm long, half that in width, fairly flat, with three rows of orange spots on the underside (middle row shorter). One of the pictures shows them at the base of a rose, which was a typical place to find a group of 3 to 8. The other two show two on a poppy stalk, which was more exposed than most of them. It was still cool in the morning, and most were quite inactive; one of them on a rose stem continually wandered around to the far side of the stem while I tried to photograph. No observation of them flying or of wings, although I did see one twitch the triangular patch on its back. All pictures were taken with a flash, and so the edges and highlights are more pronounced than they appeared to the eye. Thanks,
Leif
P.S. Please feel free to make use of the pictures I took in any way you wish.
Hi Leif,
These are not beetles, but true bugs or Hemipterans. More specifically, they are Harlequin Stink Bugs. We generally see them from other parts of the country more pronounced orange markings, but an image on BugGuide from Los Angeles, is a very close match to your image.