On this page the following entry/entries were made in “2007.” Check out other years in our Archives.
Bug Blog Archives for “2007”
Red Ladybug, Black Ladybug
Ladybugs are insects, and this means they undergo a complete metamorphosis: hatching from eggs into larvae, then transforming into pupae, and finally emerging as adult beetles. When they first emerge from their snug pupal cocoons, they look like ladybugs in shape and size, but their coloration isn’t yet set; they will typically be a pale orange-yellow or a grayish color. You see, when they first emerge their wing covers, also known as eletra — their shells or modified wing covers if you will — are wet and quite soft. It’s nothing a few hours in the sun won’t fix, though.
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Living with Pests on a Warming Planet
In a previous post announcing the return of ladybugs I asked no one in particular if this might happen again next year. I brought up the fact that the possibility does indeed exist because mother nature is having her way with us by way of the unnaturally and unprecedented accelerated rate of global warming. I got an indirect answer to this recently thanks to the Bio-Integral Resource Center (BIRC).
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Practitioner Interview: Matthew Kobs
This is a practitioner interview with Matthew Kobs. Matthew is a perennials grower for Van Berkum Nursery in Deerfield, New Hampshire. Van Berkum Nursery is local to us and we’ve actually been there. It’s a great operation and they have fantastic plants so if you get the opportunity, we suggest you drop by to check it out — or at least check out the photos on their site.
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Why We Don’t Call Them Beneficial Insects
Will we start calling them beneficial insects? Nah, it’s unlikely, but we did want to share this back-story.
For marketing reasons, due to its common usage, the term beneficial insects, or beneficials as some say, is a good one to apply in the pursuit of sales of good bugs. If you’ll notice, though, we rarely use the term on this site or in any of our literature. We’ve always tried to be proper and true in our dissemination of information — factual information we believe. Thus, we usually call them biocontrols (the contraction of biological pest controls). We will also refer to them as natural enemies and, of course, oddly enough within this context, good bugs. But why? What’s up with that?
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