Pupation color change montage

Description:

One day in October 2007, I picked up a ladybird beetle pupa that was yellow instead of red. Later that night it was orange with black spots, and I wondered if I'd imagined it. (The yellow is especially surprising in light of the fact that larvae are primarily black.) A few days later, I captured a larva as it started to pupate. Assembled from the individual images, this montage shows how the lady beetle pupa changes color in the first few hours.