Tortoise Beetle

Chrysomelidae; Cassidinae; Cassida circumdata Herbst, 1799. The first picture, shown here, was taken in 2017 and it came to light when I was searching through some old photos. I was unable to identify it and posted it on Project Noah as an unidentified “Spotting”, hoping that someone might know the species and help me with a Species ID Suggestion. I kept going back to this spotting, in the hope that something would come to mind and, each time, I jotted down some notes on a scrap of paper. I often find that it helps to just write down what I think I can see. When I looked at my notes, yesterday, I had written down “Some kind of Arthropod. Six segments. Biggest segment at the front and getting smaller towards the end, like a microscopic rattlesnake tail. Seems to have eaten through the upper skin of the leaf. Sitting in a pool of sap. Is it dead?”. I thought that I had no hope of identifying this one. So, went back to my old photos to look for something a little easier to identify. I suddenly thought “rattlesnake tail”. What if this “thing” is a tail and the body of the creature is hiding inside the leaf? So back again, to my “Spotting” and I saw it. What I had assumed was a “pool of sap” was actually a rather soppy, gelatinous, translucent body of an insect. It didn’t take long to narrow my search down to the larva of Cassida circumdata. So, all I had to do was find some relevant photos to help illustrate, at least in part, the life cycle of this strange little larva which grows into a beautiful Tortoise Beetle.