Raising ladybirds - Eggs to Larvae

I was very lucky to have discovered some ladybird eggs on the 14 May this year. After getting a good photograph of the eggs, I managed to get them identified as ladybird eggs by Helen Roy (@UKLadybirds) at the UK Ladybird Survey. We had the same idea, for me to keep them in a tub, warm and dry, and to watch them develop.

At the moment, I'm not sure which type of ladybirds these will turn out to be, but the majority of ladybirds in our garden this year are 2-spot. So perhaps, that is what they will end up being.

I had found the ladybird eggs on some garden wire that we were using to support an Apple tree. I had gone to wind the wire a bit further to keep re-align the tree, so unfortunately a couple of eggs were destroyed before I had see the eggs.

I had read that the eggs would take around 5 days to hatch, so I expected that I would see some larvae around the 18-19 of May. Around this time I didn't see much difference in the eggs and had decided that I would keep them for a couple more days before, sadly, getting rid of them. I was sure that I'd done something wrong.




Then on the late evening of the 20 May, on a random check of the eggs, imagine my surprise when I peeked into the tub and saw some black blobs! Some had hatched and I took a photo of them through my hand lens. Some, however, were still in the process of hatching, so I popped them on a piece of paper to get a better look.

Already hatched

So tiny

I then realised that, inconveniently, I would now need to go outside - in the pitch dark - and source some aphids if my hatchlings were to survive even until morning. Luckily, I had already been scouting around and had found a particular bush in our hedge that the aphids were making a good job of. As the bush was, by now, in a bad state, I had no reservations about taking off a small branch heavily colonated with sap-suckers and feeding them to my larvae! Here's a photo of the larvae getting used to its surroundings and its new neighbours.

Ah, allow me to perform the introductions: Predator meet prey, prey meet predator. I'm sure you'll be attached at the hip in no time...

A couple of days on and the larvae are doing great, they're learning one of the great lessons in live. The lesson of sharing.

So now the larvae is about 5 days old and they seem to be doing really well. The branch that I initially put into the tub has produced many aphids for them. This is because aphids are asexual meaning that they don't have sex to reproduce - instead they just clone themselves. A fact of particular interest is that the aphids can already have their offspring developing inside them at the same time they are born! Therefore it is a very short time between generations. But all this cloning means that there have been no adaptations formed as a defence against the ladybirds - perhaps the pure quantity of aphids that can be born as high speed is enough for now!

The larvae will need a plentiful supply of aphids if they are to pupate within the three or four week average. I am really hoping that I can see these lovely larvae to the stage of adults. If I can, then there will be a part 2 to this series!