Ashy gray

There have been an interesting sequence of insect events transpiring in our yard. As new leaves emerged on the shrubs this spring we observed an abundance of aphids. They seemed to be everywhere. But then we started seeing these critters:

our knights in shining armor, the ladybug larvae. The aphids vanished.

Then the larvae started pupating, and we were finding things that looked like this all over our house.The larvae had done such a number on the aphids that it seemed they were lacking prey; we observed some larvae attacking and eating some ladybug pupae!

Fortunately the predation seemed minimal because now the ladybug adults are emerging and, lo and behold, the white pupae turned into this:

The Ashy Gray Lady Beetle. I had no idea such thing existed. So cool!