Unbelievable Insect to ID please

[Granddadscott]

This evening my dear lady wife brought a couple of beef burgers from the freezer.
They were home made ones she had made some time back and put into plastic freezer bags.
Upon unfolding the bag to get at the burgers out fell a Ladybird (We have had a large number of them all summer).
Surprisingly it suddenly started to move and eventually after a few seconds it turned over and walked off.

Photos not the best



Photos not the best but unable to id the ladybird.
Amazed its still alive.

[matt_xyz]

looks like a Harlequin to me, one of the many variants.

It does seem amazing it had survived in your freezer. Are you sure your freezer is working?

Matt

[Paul mabbott]

Mmmm. If the food had been at 0C for days, weeks or months, no beetle would have survived so I suspect that the beast was hiding in something that you were handling for the food or just happened to nip in at the right time to be observed! Depending upon its size, I would think it either a 10-spot melanic ladybird (Adalia decempunctata) or, if larger (and more likely), a 'harlequin ladybird' (Harmonia axyridis).
Hope you enjoyed your tea!

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by matt_xyz

..........It does seem amazing it had survived in your freezer. Are you sure your freezer is working? Matt

Yes; big coccinellids can survive 0C for days, intermittently. However, we would expect a functional freezer to be at or below -4C; so either we have a misinterpretation of what was hapening (something I do regularly!) or the freezer isn't very effective ....
... or perhaps, haxy are much more resilient than I expect - I'll ask around!

[Granddadscott]

Yep
-18°
I now its quite amazing.
So I did ask my good lady and she assures me that it was in the fold of the plastic freezer bag.
Its more than a week since she made the burgers.

[Africa]

Agreed, a Harlequin on the dark overwintering coloration. Little surprises me about their endurance. At the end of the day, they survived outdoors all winter last winter in Hull, and it got pretty cold!

[Kayleigh]

You could do an experiment put one in a plastic container for a week in the freezer and see if its alive when you take it out.