Lady Beetle Larvae

  • Head
  • Each thoracic segment (pronotum, mesonotum, metanotum) has a pair of dorsal (tergal) plates
  • Each abdominal segment has 6 lobes visible in dorsal view, 3 on each side (dorsal, dorso-lateral and lateral).
  • Each lobe has a tergal plate with detailed armature, but for identification purposes, we will only need to refer to the lobes

photo of the ladybird beetle larval parts

Lady Beetle Pupae

To identify the pupae, there are several characters on the ventral aspect (not pictured here) that distinguish one species from another. The pupal key provided by Phuoc and Stehr (1974) is an excellent key, however such characters are too difficult to use in field identification; especially when the objective is to leave the pupae undisturbed. Therefore, dorsal characters and the last larval exuvia are used for identification.

Vine Crop Pollination in the Midwest

Marla Spivak
Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota

Introduction

Vine crops, such as melons, cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins, require insect pollination to set fruit. Insects transfer pollen from the male flowers to female flowers through cross-pollination. Multiple pollinator visits increase the size of the fruit, the number of seeds, and the consistency in the shape of the fruit.

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