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Christmas Bug
If there ever were a Christmas bug, it would be the ladybug, aka lady beetle.
The insects (family Coccinellidae) are brightly colored and spread joy in the garden when they feast on aphids.
Last summer we enjoyed watching them hanging out and hooking up. Their voracious appetites reminded us of holiday diners.
Please pass the aphids!
Ladybug on gardener's glove
Christmas bug
Fly Away Home
We netted the floundering California lady beetle (Coccinella californica) aka "lady bug," from our swimming pool.
She didn't look like the familiar lady beetle, reddish orange with black spots. One spot was all she had.
And little life left.
Then, slowly, miraculously, she opened her wings to dry out, looking somewhat like a drenched DeLorean with its doors flung open.
She reminded us of the nursery rhyme:
Ladybug! Ladybug!
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire.
And your children all gone.
All except one.
And that's little Ann.
For she crept under
The frying pan.
I don't know if she flew home. She definitely didn't creep under a frying pan.
But our little Hemiptera predator did live to see another day, and perhaps feast on another aphid or two.
Or a scale insect, mealybug or mite.
California lady beetle
