Who let out all the Lady Bugs?

[Goldie]

Does anyone know anything about all the Lady Bugs out right now?  Every year about this time they appear.  I am at the top of Cardinal and today there has to be at least a million (or more!) of them.  I find it fascinating to watch them and was wondering if they were (born?) here, are they just passing through, where do they go?

[angelwolf326]

I was at the Country Club on Sunday and Monday and they were all over there too.....

They are so cute!!!!!!!!

Angel

[Ensen]

I know that in the past, they did "lady bug drops".  They drop millions of them, by helicopter I think.  They're a natural predator to the "bad bugs".  Or so I was told.  I would guess they did something similar this year.

[rmekemson]

Aw. lady bugs - nature's insecticide.  Aren't they great?  

[mtman]

[Mountain_Witch]

Convergent Ladybug Beetle

DESCRIPTION: L=0.25" (6mm). Forewings are orange with many to no black spots. Thorax is black with converging white lines (thus the name).
NATURAL HISTORY: Both adults and larvae feed on aphids; therefore, ladybird beetles are considered beneficial to humans. Adults spend roughly May-January in the mountains, then mate Jan.-Feb., and fly down to the valleys to lay their eggs and die. The eggs hatch, and the larvae go on a feeding frenzy eating aphids until undergo complete metamorphosis into adults and fly back up to the mountains. In the mountains, the adults often congregate in huge masses as seen in the bottom photo.

[Mountain_Witch]

[Goldie]

[Chesslike]

They maybe cute, but watch out cause some of them have a little mean streak and will bite you! For real!

[Mountain_Witch]

[Stitches]

Are there different species of lady bugs?   My six year old keeps claiming that the ladybugs with spots are girls and the ones without are boys.        

[Mountain_Witch]

[naturalist]

They have been hibernating up high in those cracks and crevices that Mountain Witch mentioned--I've seen them in old tree stumps completely frozen in the ice!  When the ice thaws, they wake up (hungry--yes, sometimes they make a mistake and nibble on you!) and come down in the huge "swarms" we see this week!  

[naturalist]

Okay, the other day I wrote a ladybug haiku:

Like orange snowflakes
Falling up from the cracks,
Ladybugs awake

[Nolena]

I've seen up to a foot of them in the bottoms of canyons in the winter. (Flume Canyon, canyons around Vincent Gap, etc.)

[Mountain_Witch]

I dig it.  

You're a pretty groovey Natuarlist. [smiley=flower2.gif]

[Goldie]

 Thanks for all the info everyone - very interesting!

[Goldie]

Good news is they're back!
Bad news, so is the pone

[lynnc]

This past Monday I was hiking with some friends at the bottom of Cedar Canyon where it meets up with Mescal Canyon.  There were millions of lady bugs all over this one particular area.  Today I was there again and they were completely gone!  Does anyone know where they hibernate?  I was wondering if they were heading down to the desert. 

[SkierBob]

I've also seen lady bugs by the millions in the Littlerock Creek drainage..  4 inches deep covering everything in site.  It appears ladybugs gathering together in masses has something to do with them getting ready to hibernate. 

http://www.psd267.wednet.edu/~kfranz/Science/science2000/ladybugs/ladybugscience.htm