Viburnum Leaf Beetle (Corrected)

If you read this, you are probably also reading Marielle Anzelone’s Spring series at the New York Times. If not you should be. Yesterday’s article introduced us to the Viburnum Leaf Beetle (Pyrrhalta viburni) an invading species which devours Viburnum species, especially Arrowwood (Viburnum dentatum).

EDITED & UPDATED 7/28/15:

I was incorrect about this. VLB larvae look like this. The picture below looks much more like a ladybug larvae.

Well, yesterday afternoon in Van Cortlandt Park, I met one of these beetles in person, at least in its tiny larval stage. This is just one of the instars, or stages of the beetles’ larval growth:Small, but hungry.