Ten-spotted ten-spot

I find 10-spot ladybirds in my garden regularly but infrequently, though I don't always recognise them immediately. The ones I see here tend to look like small, pale harlequins, and a few years ago I recorded one as such, but luckily the verifier pulled out and queried the record. By the time I found this specimen, exactly two years ago, I'd (more or less) got my eye in, and realised that it wasn't a harlequin, though I did still have to check the identification later.

Given all of this, and the fact that I'd never seen a ladybird quite like this one before, I'm pretty pleased with myself for realising what it was. Well... suspecting would be more accurate. But as I was photographing it, I did say "Are you a 10-spot?" The ladybird was playing it cool and mysterious though, so I had to grab my shots before it scuttled over the edge of the leaf and away out of view, and then - as usual - check the identification afterwards with my on line sources.

As 10-spot ladybirds go, this specimen appears to be quite unusual. It's the chequered form, with five pale spots per wing case on a dark ground, which is called "decempustulata" (which I guess means something like "10-spotted 10-spot"), but I haven't found many illustrations of this form in which the spots are as jazzy as these. Having said which, the ten-spot is recognised as one of the most variable species of ladybird, and intermediate forms do occur between some of the eight recognised and named variants.

Compared with its cousin the 2-spot ladybird, the 10-spot is more arboreal, and it's generally found on deciduous trees, though it will also visit flowers in search of food. Adults appear around March, and mating occurs during April and May. Eggs are laid on foliage and twigs or in bark crevices, and hatch after a few days. The larvae are ferocious predators of aphids and other soft-bodied insects. New adults appear in the late summer, and feed up through the autumn before overwintering in leaf litter or bark crevices. Sometimes adults from both the new and the previous generation will overwinter together, and they may huddle alongside other ladybirds. I doubt there will be many individuals in my garden roost this winter that are as flamboyantly dressed as this one.