Bug Id please

angeldaisy

just rescued this out of the dogs water dish, no idea what it is though, not seen anything like it before.

Kicking Bird

It's a Ladybird larva,believe it or not!

angeldaisy

Kicking Bird wrote: »

It's a Ladybird larva,believe it or not!

wow! that's really cool, before I go off googling, is there a website that shows these things, transitions through from larva etc...
would love to show my son these transitional stages:D


Edit:
Just found one!
http://www.everything-ladybug.com/ladybug-life-cycle.html

fryup

ladybirds don't seem to be as plentiful as years gone by...is there a reason for this?? widespread use of pesticides??

Kicking Bird

To be fair,the use of pesticides has always been an issue and can't see why it would have affected ladybird populations this year in particular than any other in the past.

My belief is that it may have been the particularly wet summers we've been having in recent years;there's less laying females about,so obviously it's going to have a knock-on effect the following season.Our last winter wasn't particularly harsh,so don't think that's a contributing factor.

Going back to the pesticides issue,with the recent EU ban on such chemicals as the neonicotinoids,hopefully we'll see an upsurge in insect populations within the next decade - time will tell!

fryup

^^^

i wouldn't hold my breath, how many will actually conform to this ban??

Kicking Bird

fryup wrote: »

^^^

i wouldn't hold my breath, how many will actually conform to this ban??

Unfortunately,I think you might be right!