My First Indoor-Bred Melanic Form Coelophora inequalis

Yesterday evening, when I got off from work, I noticed that the pupa of Coelophora inequalis was empty which was reared from an egg previously obtained from a caught female melanic C. inequalis in UPM. In the last observation, I mated a spotted C. inaequalis and the melanic form together and collected 12 eggs. However, only one egg survived up to the adult stage while the rest only made up to the 2nd larval stage. This meant that the ladybird was my first indoor-bred C. inaequalis and the interesting part was, the ladybird was a melanic forma. I named the ladybird, CiB1. I kept feeding CiB1 with lots of ragi aphid to maintain it before finding out the sex. If it is a female then, I would try to mate it with a wild male spectabilis form of C. inaequalis to get the eggs and observe the frequency and ratio of the melanic form. If it is a male, then I would have to wait for one indoor-breed spectabilis female (there is a reason for this). For this first observation, I would mate the indoor-bred melanic form with a spectabilis form of C. inaequalis. Progress will be updated soon...



You can see the melanic (black) ladybird is CiB1. I bet (she) is so adorable. The spotless orange type is the wild male.