INSECTS INJURIOUS TO BEANS AND PEAS 



287 



and careful weeding of native food-plants such as tick-trefoil and 

 bush-clover, near cultivated crops are 

 most important. 



The Bean Ladybird * 



The Bean Ladybird is the most 

 serious enemy of beans in Colorado, 

 New Mexico, Arizona, and Western 

 Kansas, whence it migrated from 

 Mexico. It is an interesting insect in 

 that only two other native species of 

 this family of beetles (Coccinellidce) feed 

 upon vegetation, the normal food of the 

 family being plant-lice, scale insects, and 

 soft-bodied larvae. 



Professor C. P. Gillettef describes it as 

 follows: 



" The beetle (Fig. 246, A) is oval in 

 outline, nearly one-third an inch in 

 length by one-fifth an inch in breadth, 

 of a light yellow to a yellowish-brown 

 color and has eight small black spots on 

 each wing-cover. The mature larva is 

 about the same length as the beetle, is 

 of light yellow color and is covered with 

 stout branched spines that are black at 

 their tips, a larva being shown at C, 

 Fig. 246. The larva when fully grown 

 fastens the posterior end of its body to 

 the under side of a leaf and then in a 

 few days sheds its outer skin containing 

 the spines and changes to the pupa state 

 (Fig. 246, B). From these pupae the FIG. 246. The bean lady- 

 beetles appear a few days later. They bird (Epilachna varivestis 

 r . , , Muls.): a, adult beetle: 



bve over winter, and appear about as &, pupa; c, larva; d, bean 



soon as the beans are up in the garden or PS showing injury. (After 

 o ,, , , . r i Gillette, Colo. Agr. Exp. 



field and begin to feed upon the leaves, Sta.) 



* Epilachna varivestis Muls. Family Coccinellidce. 

 t Bulletin 19, Colo. Agr. Exp. Sta., p. 25. 



