The Swarm

So I come home from Syracuse last weekend (yet another loss--don't even get me started; apparently you can't spell "suck" without "SU") and I find the front of the house teeming with ladybugs. Now, my life has been a never-ending battle with creatures of all kinds, be they ants, bats, etc., but ladybugs have never usually bugged me (as it were). While I acknowledge that ladybugs are "helpful" insects in that they feed on other insects that are considered pests (notably aphids), and that they are completely harmless to humans, I still have a hard time with swarms of things.

So what was up with the ladybugs? I went to the Internet and found out that at this time of year, ladybugs (or ladybirds, as they have more historically been called) seek out warm places in which to hibernate for the winter and as a result attach themsleves to the warm sides of houses and seek entry (happily, they have yet to find it).

I also wondered if the swarm was what the flock of bluejays in the from yard were frenziedly feeding on (yes, it's like bloody "Wild Kingdom" around here) but I had forgotten that the bright red coloration of ladybugs is asosematic, which means that they are colored in such a way as to announce to potential predators that they are poisonous if eaten. (This is a common warning system in the animal kingdom--most notably among frogs--and is a rather clever bit of evolution; after all, it's a good idea to tell a creature that you're poisonous since it does an organism no good whatsoever if the animal that eats it later dies.) Ladybugs are not poisonous, but some species have evolved asosematic coloration to fool would-be eaters. (This differs, I would imagine, from asosemitic coloration, whereby species evade predation by dressing as rabbis.)

The suggestion was made to me the other night that I could collect the ladybugs and sell them to gardeners; after all, you can buy ladybugs commercially to put in your garden and get rid of aphids or other pests. (Apparently, you are supposed to spray them with Coke so their wings get all syrupy and sticky and they can't fly away, which sounds a tad cruel to me.) However, not all ladybug species eat aphids (there are more than a dozen species of ladybug, all of which eat different things--some actually eat mold and mildew) so I'd have to make sure that the ones I've got eat the right pests. I'm not sure how I would so that; maybe have menus printed up with a variety of insects on them, distribute them to the swarm, and see which they order.

One particular species of ladybug had its origins in China and some rumors have had it that they were brought to the U.S. in an attempt to de-pest a particular area--and, just as is inevitably the case when people try this, the ladybugs eventually became the pest. However, entomologists have disputed this story and are of the opinion that the ladybugs simply came over as most things do--on boats, planes, etc.

And that's everything you ever wanted to know about ladybugs.

So what were the bluejays feeding on? I still don't know exactly, but I did discover yesterday, hidden in the bushes in the front of the house, a hornet's nest the size of a beach ball. Fortunately, at this time of the year, hornets' nests die out and the dead bugs within are left to be eaten by birds. Which may explain what the jays were doing.

Y'know, I'm suddenly nostalgic for New York City...