Went to the beach Monday and found a million ladybugs being washed ashore. Actually, I went to the beach Monday, found ONE ladybug on a sand dollar, went to take pictures of it, on my knees and when I stopped paying attention in came a wave and got me all wet, which was when I noticed the plethora of ladybugs around me. The beach is long, and I can only imagine that there were literally MILLIONS of them. If anyone is wondering how they got there, I will tell you. Every year ladybugs travel up north a little ways [just north of San Francisco] and hiberate for the winter. When Spring comes and things warm up again they fly into an air column which allows them to quickly and almost effortlessly be carried back to the warm farm land further south and in the valley. BUT every now and then the wind blows in the wrong direction, instead of a coastal breeze coming inland, the wind blows out to sea [Santa Ana's, but up here]. Sometimes, when the weather is right the ladybugs come out of hiberation fly up into the air column and get blown out to sea, where they drown. These are the ones that made it back to shore.
wow... those are really cool photos! At our last house, we had a large screened in porch, and one day I went out there and there were literally thousands and thousands of ladybugs inside covering the screens. An hour or two later when my husband came home from work, I went to show him and they were just gone. It was so bizarre.
It's not the best of the best of cameras, but it's decent, it's really more of an intermediate camera. It gets the job done, and I really love it. I paid $240 I think for it - Olympus Stylus 1010. Aren't you glad you know about how ladybugs sometimes drown now? Thank you
That's pretty interesting. I never knew that before. Cool pics too. I'd think it'd be bad ass to get high and just jump in the sky and be blown around the country by wind. lol. like para sailing. fuck i wana do that so bad blastidddddd
That's what it felt like, I think I said outloud: "Are they coming from the ocean?!" I was puzzled for awhile. Then you should be happy, this was like a ladybug massacre with them all drowning. I love ladybugs, they are pretty weird little bugs. I used to buy them at the nursery and release them when I was younger and I was always disappointed when the next day I couldn't find a single one. I'm glad you got to witness a ladybug mass exodus too! The second picture I was thinking: "Whatttt theee fuckkkk"
There's a bunch of lady bugs and bees by my work right now. They always come this time of year. The bees are fucking retarded though, they fly in huge swarms and don't even know what they're doing. They just crash into a bunch of shit and freak people out. Some of them can't even fly right. Fucking assholes
I've always wondered the hibernation patterns of California ladybugs, thank you for this. I'm joking. Those pics are cool.. You never know what'll wash up to shore... I got a lot of beaches since I'm in Michigan, but no good ones.
Ladybugs like to infest my house at the beginning of each winter. I found some spray that kills them pretty instantly, but before that I had to break out the vaccuum and suck them off the walls every day when I came home from work.
Pretty sure, this is documented ladybug behavior and ladybugs hiberate not even thirty miles from here. BUT, there are like thousands of species of ladybugs, so who knows. I could be wrong of course. I think they were Hippodamia Convergens, but I'm not an entomologist. Glad you guys enjoyed the pictures
No clue, they may not have been blown very far out to shore and could have easily clung to any debris [and there is a ton of it that washes ashore, especially at this beach] to escape drowning. I was amazed by the number I saw crawling out of the incoming tide, and even more amazed by how few of them were actually washed back out to shore once they were on the sand and crawling further upwards. By the time I got there, it had grown cooler and that's when they stop moving around, they were all clinging not very far from the incoming tide to seaweed. I threw the large clusters upshore more out of the way of the tide, but I'm sure most of them did drown. As I mentioned ladybugs stop flying after the sun sets, so they were defenseless against the ocean. Circle of life. [the shorebirds sure were happy]