Friday, October 3, 2008

Signs of Fall are Missing




I haven't seen two signs of fall yet this year - two bugs that fall into the "orangish" range of colors - the Asian ladybug and the boxelder bug. Where are they? Usually my house has a few on the southern side. At work there are thousands hanging onto the warm brick and dropping onto visitors forcing us all to brush our shoulders off as we come in from our cars. So, where are they? Is this a natural cycle? Do the populations of Asian ladybugs and boxelder bugs typically wax and wane? I understand that Asian ladybugs have a defensive reaction and emit an unpleasant smelling yellow fluid from their legs joints, grossing out the birds that like to prey on them. Boxelder bugs are not plentiful every season. They are more likely to be numerous when we have a hot dry summer followed by a warm spring. We did not have a warm spring this year and I guess that is why we have fewer boxelder bugs.


1 comment:

Kathleen Riley said...

I will happily bring several thousand box elder bugs from the southern side of our house. Actually, you can stop by anytime and have as many as you want.

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