MetaChat - Tell Me More About Ladybugs!

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08 February 2006

Tell Me More About Ladybugs! Also, they don't have to pay rent.→[More:] I want to build a ladybug safe house for the ladybugs who live in my bathroom and bedroom and whom I am constantly rescuing from certain death via toilet and bathtub. I want my ladybugs to be happy. But I don't want to buy aphids for them to eat: I want them to eat bacon. Or something less eeepy than aphids which, if they got out, might eat all my plants. Escaped bacon is not a big problem. What do you think are my chances? And what would make the perfect ladybug habitat?

post by: mygothlaundry at: 13:20 | 13 comments

Sadly aphids make the perfect ladybug habitat. When the aphids run out they will bite humans. I did not know that untill I moved to an area with lots of soy farms.

posted by arse_hat 08 February | 13:26

They'll bite humans???

posted by Specklet 08 February | 13:34

The Asian variety (a bit more orange than the redder American kind) will. Farmers release them in summer to eat aphids. In the fall when the plants are harvested the aphids supply drops and there are a lot of hungry ladybugs. The bite feels like a bad itch but it does no real damage.

posted by arse_hat 08 February | 13:39

Yes. I, myself, have been bitten by the seemingly friendly ladybug.

posted by bmarkey 08 February | 13:39

I adore ladybugs. Of course, no ladybug has ever tried to eat me. But still, I think I'd adore a hungry ladybug all the same. I'd just feed it some of mgl's bacon.

posted by amro 08 February | 13:58

Escaped bacon

Well, at least now I know what I'm calling my band.

posted by Capn 08 February | 13:58

NERD JOKE: \bacon

posted by Capn 08 February | 13:59

This biting story is an evil calumny on the good name of ladybugs everywhere. I mean, I sleep with them, and they've never bitten me. Disclaimer: I'm not sleeping with them for some hideous perverse pleasure, I'm sleeping with them because they end up in my bed no matter what I do. Really. Also, I think that second link is too cute for words.

posted by mygothlaundry 08 February | 14:36

Lots more here.

posted by arse_hat 08 February | 14:49

The ladybugs are everywhere today. All over the place. I have the good kind, though, not the imported Asian kind that's been a plague on the Midwest/South/East.

posted by mudpuppie 08 February | 16:54

Anyone else remember the one day plague of Asian ladybugs here in Toronto a few springs ago? I think it was somehow caused by an unusually long dry spell that caused all the eggs to hatch at once.

posted by Capn 08 February | 17:24

There can be too many ladybugs. Every Spring and Autumn in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia there are gazillions of ladybugs floating about. It is a plague of epic proportions. And they stink. Yes, they literally stink. Don't touch them because washing your hands doesn't totally get rid of the stench. Bleh.

posted by deborah 08 February | 19:01

When I was younger, I noticed every spring my medicine cabinet at my family's house developed a minor infestation of ladybugs for some reason.

posted by pieisexactlythree 08 February | 20:13

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