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Today, I saw some bugs which I never have seen before. One was a wolf spider which was jet black with metallic green (like a japanese beetle) eyes and fangs. It was living in a pipe stuck in the ground. When I approached it on a path, it moved back into the pipe. I backed off about 15 ft and watched it with 10x binoculars and it slowly crept out to the top of the pipe edge. It was beautiful. If it is still there next weekend, I'll get a picture. The second was a ladybird beetle with a jet black back and a medium sized red dot on each wing. Both of these were seen on a path in a bog behind our house.
17 responses total.
I can't recall seeing a black ladybird with red dots - though my book mentions that variety. Is there anywhere around where one can buy a pint, or pound, of ladybirds? Our locust in the front of the house gets infested with a leaf beetle. Last year they nearly defoliated it in the spring, but it releafed and seemed undamaged afterward. I bought poison to spray, but can't bring myself to do it. I'd like to try ladybirds.
My wife has several catalogs which sell ladybirds. If you would like a contact, let me know and I'll send it to you.
Yes please - a contact. Are they are the web? (Bugs, you know... ;-})
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Rane, try this - We have some ads which directly say "Ladybird Beetles"
but couldn't locate them. If we find them, I will post again.
ps: dont drink the home brew
pps: If you find out what a Shepherd's seed is let me know
Thanks! I will give them a call.
Marc found another site for me - Arizona Biological Control (ARBISCO)
at
http://www.usit.net/hp/bionet/agcat.html
ABISCO sells landbugs/beetles as follows:
BG1125 1/4 pt (650 sq. ft; 2,300 ladybugs) (1#) $7.60
BG1124 1/2 pt (2,500 sq. ft; 4,500 ladybugs) (1#) $8.75
BG1123 1 pt (5,000 sq. ft; 9,000 ladybugs) (1#) $14.00
BG1122 1 qt. (15,000 sq. ft; 18,000 ladybugs) (2#) $25.55
BG1121 1/2 gal. (5 acres; 36,000 ladybugs) (2#) $32.60
BG1120 1 gal. (10-20 acres; 72,000 ladybugs) (3#) $64.00
BG1126 1/2 pt. every 2 wks for 3 shipments (1# each) $8.20
BG1126 is the best deal: 1 1/2 pt. total for $8.20 It also seems you need more ladybugs / sq. ft. with fewer sq. ft.
Hmmm...I bet that is $8.20 *each shipment*. Interesting observation on the bug density vs. area. Here is a hypothesis to explain it: The bugs are mobile, so they will diffuse off the target area. This is much more rapid for a small area than a large area, so one must have a higher initial density on a small area to have the same average resident density, over some period of time. The latter brings in the reproductive cycle of the ladybugs, as they also tend to *increase* their density. There should be a steady state, but with a much smaller density on a small area than on a large one (food supply willing). Probably someone has done a PhD dissertation on this....
titled: Dissertation on the random bugonian movement of Adalia bipunctata
There are a lot of beneficial insects available from ARBICO: besides ladybugs, they supply: "Beneficial generalists" (green lacewings, praying mantids, spined soldier bugs, minute pirate bug and trichogramma (a wasp); "beneficial specialists" (mostly wasps predatory on single pest species); "beneficial mites"; and "beneficial organisms" (e.g., fungi).
Every year I have a colony of hundreds of ladybirds at the side of my house, under a small log, under my mulberry tree. Yesterday there was a spider in my office, which played dead when I picked it up and then started crawling again a few minutes later. It had turned itself upside down, with legs curled up. I didn't know a spider could plat possum.
Most spiders will play dead. One type, that resides in my basement, will shake so fast as to "disappear" in the blur of its motion.
We saw the most interesting moth or butterfly tonight. It's body was about 3/4" long and it was black with two thin bright yellow strips around its back end. It had a black proboscus which stuck straight out from its head about 3/8". It's wings were beating so fast that you could not see them. This insect had all of the maneuvers of a hummingbird. It could roll, back up, take off like a shot, etc. It would react instantly if we moved while near it. It obviously was feeding on the flowers' nectar and in that respect it also resembled a hummingbird - moving in and out of the flower (dwarf lilacs) while remaining in flight. I have seen moths similar to this in Florida, and were told they were hummingbird moths. The Florida ones did not have the yellow stripes. I have an insect identification booklet, but nothing like this is listed. Anyone ever see such a moth or butterfly?
Hawk moth or sphinx moth, a member of the Sphingidae family of moths. Many of them are day-fliers, some come out at dusk. Sounds like you might've seem a moth called Abbott's Sphinx, Sphecodina abbotti. Just a guess.
Yes, I've had hawk moths at my house. Don't remember any yellow on them, tho.
This item has been linked from Nature 61 to Intro 64. Type "join nature" at the Ok: prompt for discussion of little crawly things, and other aspects of nature.
The insect you described (3/4" long) sounds more like a large beefly (Diptera: Bombyliidae) than a moth - hummingbird and bumblebee sphinx moths are larger than that, and the behavior sounds more like a bee fly. As an entomologist for over 25 years, that fits the things that I have seen. If anyone is interested in learning about dragonflies & damselflies, check out one of my web sites: http://insects.ummz.lsa.umich.edu/ michodo/mos.html Cheers
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