Signs of autumn...

[altivo]

The annual plague of ladybugs has appeared. Flying clumsily around my workroom, bouncing off lightbulbs, suiciding in my tea mug.

I think these bugs are more useless than mosquitoes. Their sole purpose seems to be to become a nuisance. And they live for a very long time without food and water it seems.

Like kudzu, they were introduced from Asia. Why, I can't imagine.

Comments

[brunbera.livejournal.com]

Actually, ladybugs do us a lot of good - they eat many pests (they are carnivores). Primarily aphids and other plant-eating monsters.

Click here for more ladybug related info.

Plus, I think they're pretty.

^.^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

This is true of the native North American ladybug species.

The ones I am talking about have become a nuisance pest in the midwest, I don't know about other areas of the US. But they are not native. They are an Asian ladybug. They do eat aphids, but they also suck juices from plants themselves. They sometimes try to suck juices from people (unsuccessful, but it gives you an irritating pinch.)

In the autumn they look for warmer places and tend to invade houses, garages, and cellars in huge numbers (tens of thousands.) They seem to be drawn to warmth, light, and moisture, so they get into your food, your hot beverages, and your hair. They love to crawl down your neck and pinch you, or cluster around lightbulbs, repeatedly crashing against the glass with an insistent tick tick tick. If you squash them, they stain and smell bad.

I've been told they were deliberately brought here to control an aphid that attacks soybeans. But there are native predators who do as well at that, and these ladybugs seem to lack focus on their intended target.

[1-broken-toy.livejournal.com]

Could be worse.

Where I lived in Missouri we had these Japanese beetles. Three inches long and airborne even though scientists say they can't control all that well where they go...

These beetles have a distinct mating cry with is like a scream being fed through a synth filter... Now imagine millions of beetles doing this all day and all night from April to October... Whee!

The only fun part was hitting them with your windshield when you had an out-of-towner in the car... *BAM!!!!* Holy sh_t!

Argh.

[(Anonymous)]

Just another example of man messing around with the world's ecosystems.

Oh well :(