Coccinellid death shuffle

A

AlexW

Eudicella
Today my 7-spot coccinellid has mysteriously been acting moribund. This afternoon I found it upside down, and after flipping it walked around around at tenebrionid speed with one wing protruding from elytra.

Here is some background

Lives in old salsa jar with ash-gray ladybeetle; the gray beetle seems fine today

Plastic wrap, 12 small pinholes for ventilation

Was acting quite fine yesterday

Fruit and hemipterans regularly provided, although a hemipteran shortage is in progress

Still walks, climbs, and investigates food (not much eating has now been seen though)

Cold nights recently, but itd been fine all winter in the house (SoCal winters rather mild but still can give humans flu)

Any ideas? Biggest suspects: soap irritation (I recently washed container but saw no soap), forgetting to use house heater (but gray beetle and Coniontis still fine).

 
Saw no soap = don’t remember using soap to wash. Perhaps chemicals in the towel? Gray beetle prefers leaves to plastic, so perhaps it was less affected

 
Maybe it was old age? Im not sure how long coccinelids generally live, but this one couldve been near the end of its lifespan.

 
Well, that is possible, but going from zipping around eating aphids to crawling pathetically on the floor is a few days seems suspicious.

I think most spp have long adult lives; short lived insects are more likely to drop dead suddenly according to my intuition. A number of shortlivers have internal mechanisms which kill them before old age sets in. Zophobas adults on the other hand slow down gradually before death, and so do Gibbifer.

 
I have read a Coccinella research paper and found nothing wrong with my setup. Perhaps just some strange freak accident

 
Finally stopped moving today. Maybe it will revive with fresh air though, but I’m sure it will probably stay unconscious

 
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