Harlequin ladybird larvae (juvenile stage) and pupae (undeergoing metamorphosis).
Harlequins originate in the far east of Asia. They were deliberately introduced into America to control aphids. Instead they rapidly became worse pests themselves.
They were also brought to Europe, including Britain, by human activity, not deliberately this time.
First recorded in Britain in 2005. When I first started this blog, in 2009, one of the conservation bodies had a system in place to report all sightings of these beetles, to aid efforts to control them.
It didn’t work. In my haphazard sightings this year, harlequins have outnumbered all native ladybirds several times over.