WHERE DID ALL THE LADYBUGS GO?

Rex Burress

We know that when summer turns to winter, birds take the place of beetles around the Feather River. Where are the heat-loving insects hiding during the cold days after autumn?

Some people are happy to exchange mosquitoes for mudhens, but still wonder how thousands of insect species manage to survive and repopulate the following year. The ladybug, or more properly, the ladybird beetle, is one species of colorful coleoptera that makes the seasonal shift to dormancy.

Other arthropod creatures, especially insects and spiders, are among the animals that join the cold weather exodus by either migrating, hiding in crevices, or being contained in cocoons, chrysalis,' and eggs. The showy beetles are noticeably missed by entomology devotees. However, ladybugs are still around in all their red-coated regalia if you know where to look, just as monarch butterflies hangout in certain seacoast sheltering trees.

One of the characteristics of the most abundant ladybug species, the Convergent Ladybird Beetle [Hippodamia convergens], is to cluster in massive swarms in sheltered Sierra foothill brush niches until spring. They also gather in coastal places like Redwood Canyon Regional Park, and every year when I lived in nearby Oakland, I would find them in the same sunny spot clustered like bees in a swarm, seemingly slightly asleep as if waiting for the signal of spring.

When temperatures reach about 65 degrees, they stir from their mild hibernation and disperse, pair-off and mate, laying minute yellow eggs often near aphid colonies. The dark larvae, with a tapering tail and a wiggling walk like an alligator lizard, are quite unlike the attractive oval-shaped adults, and voraciously eat thousands of aphids during their 3-6 week life span before pupating.

From the pupa comes that brilliant red beetle with about 13 black spots, as in the convergent ladybug. Spots vary among species, and the 28-spotted ladybug is an alien from Russia that feeds on potato plants. Although most species have spots, there is one solid red native type, and another solid black. California has about 175 species of ladybugs with about 5000 worldwide.

My mother in Missouri farm days was kept busy dusting potato leaves as several kinds of bugs attacked, including the Colorado potato bug that is shaped like a ladybug but has stripes instead of dots. In California, the plump Jerusalem cricket is also called potato bug. Feasting on potato leaves is surprising when you consider that potatoes are in the Solanaceae family that features a number of poisonous plants. Nightshade, datura, and bluewitch are some that have poison. Ladybirds are not without some distasteful chemicals, either, as their leg joints can give off a toxic yellow fluid to discourage enemies. It would seem that the red back is a warning signal.

The shiny red backs are actually wing covers called elytras. When they fly, as in “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,” the covers swing open like the roof of a covered stadium, revealing flimsy-looking wing flaps, sufficient to fly from summer mountains to lowland foothills for hibernation. How individual ladybugs determine where the assemblage-meeting place is located is one of those wonders of nature and migration. Additionally, ladybugs are not all ladies as some are males! Markings are identical other than the male being slightly smaller.

Ladybugs got their name from Queen Mary of Britain who often wore a red cloak that had seven black spots symbolizing her seven joys and seven sorrows.

“The Ladybug wears no disguise,/She is just what she advertises;/A speckled spectacle

of spring,/A fashion statement on the wing.../A miniature orange kite./

A tiny dot to dot delight.”--J. Patrick Lewis