A couple of insects

A couple of insects from Meols the other day. The first is clearly a 22-spot ladybird, the other looks like Epeolus cruciger to me, which according to NBN Gateway is pretty scarce but does occur on the Wirral coast. Epeolus cruciger is a cleptoparasite, which means it steals food from another species, in this case Colletes succinctus.

This photo shows the animals three ocelli quite well. Ocelli (or ocellus singular) are"simple eyes" with a single lens. Humans also have "simple eyes" and the term is used to distinguish them from the insects compound eye which has multiple lenses.

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