I came across this ladybird-like insect on the underside of the Ixora leaf (first photo in the collage). It looked like a ladybird but a closer inspection revealed that it was a tortoise beetle. I've photographed quite a few tortoise beetles but never like this one. To see the kinds of patterns on them you might like to visit this site.
http://richardpeters.typepad.com/blog/2011/05/tortoise-beetles.html
Commonly seen ladybirds that I photographed a few months ago. To see more details of tortoise beetles check out my post here.
