Life cycles of a ladybug

I didn’t expect to play landlord this summer. But when we discovered one morning that our balcony garden was blessed with ladybug larva, well, I couldn’t say no to the request. These tiny terrors practice their predatory instincts on bugs bigger than them before they even have a protective exoskeleton. They especially enjoy eating aphids, mites, and other soft-bodied scum (yes, I’m biased about my insects). Given that we’d been fighting a losing battle against aphid armadas for what felt like years, I was more than willing to let some ladybugs-to-be earn their keep and get a free meal along the way.

A ladybug larva, anchored to the leaf of a pepper plant. It was about the length of a pinky fingernail, for reference.

I’ve always loved ladybugs, but when I was a kid, I didn’t know they were so carnivorous. I focused instead on their beautiful wings and the folk knowledge that a ladybug landing on you brings good luck. I didn’t go full entomologist about it, but I knew they had multiple life stages and physical forms; though I’ve been to the nearby bug museum, I had never seen the transition from juvenile to adult. That is, until one of our resident larva anchored itself to a leaf on a pepper plant and started wiggling. If you watch a video of a ladybug life cycle, it seems like the larva metamorphosizes almost overnight, thanks to the movie magic of time-lapse. But let’s not discount the patience of the ladybug. Our little friend stayed in the same place, flailing its body in slow motion, for about two days before we noticed it start: the pupa.

Let’s be honest, a pupa is not quite as beautiful as the chrysalis of a butterfly. But this ladybug pupa holds just as many secrets. The former larva slowly covers itself up, then liquefies inside its new shell, before reforming as a solid in a totally different shape, and cracking open its own creation to rejoin the world. If that’s not a metaphor, it’s at least very metal. I have so many questions: does the adult ladybug remember its time as a youngling? Is there a tiny part of the larva that stays solid, and acts as the seed from which the adult body is constructed? Does it hurt to go through such a drastic transformation?

That same ladybug larva, now in pupa form. It anchors itself to the leaf, never mind that the leaf itself is far from a stable surface.

The timing of our resident’s metamorphosis was serendipitous. The larva started forming its chrysalis just hours after a cold snap threatened to cut the gardening season short, but the weather backed off quickly enough for almost everyone to recover. The leaf where the larva decided to anchor itself almost got rejected by the plant, whether because of the pupa itself or just because the plant decided that leaf no longer served it well. And in somewhat related fashion, this insect started its transformation just hours after I barged into a panic attack, setting off my own metamorphosis.

Bugs have it easy. Their growth processes, whether shrugging off old exoskeletons or going full-in on the pupa mode, are tangible ways to say, “so long to the past, I’m entering a new stage of life.” Humans have a harder time with that. The body holds onto so much weight; it’s no wonder we feel heavier than we are some days. Yes, we’re constantly shedding skin cells, and our entire body might have rebuilt itself on a granular level over the course of a month or two. But it’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when we can say, “I’m different than I was before.” 

In the hours and days after panic attacked my entire body, I thought about the pupa, about what it takes to undergo transformation. A wise woman told me that our bodies bring up issues only when we’re ready to deal with them. Ladybugs only pupate when they’ve amassed enough size and energy. Once the process starts, there’s no going back, so they have to trust that they’re ready to handle the change, and have faith that some predator won’t take them down at their weakest moment.

I kept an eye on this ensconced insect, partly to protect it, but mostly to see if I could notice the moment an adult ladybug took shape inside the casing. Patience is not my strong suit, but the ladybug takes exactly as much time as it needs. One calm evening, it emerged. It felt like watching a birth, but with more wisdom than innocence; like that feeling when the clock turns over to a new year, and the calendar becomes a blank slate of opportunity. 

An adult ladybug, still waking up from its pupated state.

The ladybug unfurled its inner wings, the jelly-looking shell slowly taking on pigment and luster as it readied itself to depart. I thanked our temporary tenant for going beyond our aphid-eating expectations. Suddenly it took flight, evicting itself from its house at our home, and set course due south, in search of tasty snacks and others of its kind. Maybe next year I’ll meet its relatives as they venture north, and we can play host once again to the endless cycle of life. Maybe by then, I’ll have transformed myself, too.