ladybugs
awild | October 20, 2008I've blogged a lot about lady beetles recently. That's because we have been inundated by them ever since moving to Illinois. The beetle deluge is not a good thing, though, as ours are nearly all Harmonia axyridis, an extraordinarily pesty species imported from Asia in what must rank as one of the most poorly executed biological control projects ever. In the wake of the alien lady beetle invasion, our native species have all but disappeared.
Enter the Lost Ladybug Project. The project is a citizen-science initiative out of Cornell University to gather information on the distribution of…
zooillogix | July 11, 2007The great majority of cabbage aphids are peace-loving.
To aphids, ladybugs are infidels. And what's the greatest way to stop an infidel? A suicide bomb of course! In order to stave off their ladybug enemies, cabbage aphids strike back with internally produced, mustard oil bombs. The mustard oil--emitted in a single, deadly burst--either disables or kills the ladybug dogs, but also destroys the aphid who lets it loose.
Cabbage aphids, fittingly, eat a form of cabbage containing chemicals known as glucosinolates, which they then store in their blood. The aphids also produce an enzyme called…