
High-flying ladybug swarm shows up on National Weather Service radar - leothekim
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ladybugs-on-radar-20190604-story.html
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lkrubner
I have a question. Does anyone know why insects sometimes go so high? I went
to Chicago last year and I went to the top of the Hancock building and I went
to top floor, the observatory, to look out and see the surrounding area. And a
dragonfly flew by outside. Why would it be up that high? What's the point?
There is nothing up there. On the wide open plains of the west, there are not
many reasons for insects to go so high, so why do they?

~~~
mlrtime
Or the annoyance of that one mosquito making up to your 45th story apartment
in NYC, how does it know to get up there and through my tiny cracked window!?

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sjg007
You may have standing water nearby.

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kadendogthing
On the other hand, it's NYC. There's standing water everywhere.

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dillonmckay
The disintegrating wooden water tanks on the roof?

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viewtransform
One thing I was surprised to learn is that ladybugs migrate like butterflies.
In California, there are secret locations in the Sierras where they overwinter
before flying off into the central valley.
[https://youtu.be/Y3v8AogAK7U?t=295](https://youtu.be/Y3v8AogAK7U?t=295)

~~~
wil421
In the South they find secret locations like your window seal[1], door frame,
or house siding only to come out in the hundreds when the time is right. They
used to infest the schools I went to.

Some people even put them into their garden to kill bugs. The article said
they love aphids.

[1][https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-ladybird-ladybug-nest-
on-w...](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-ladybird-ladybug-nest-on-
window-310685963.html)

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Wowfunhappy
Well, at least they're ladybugs. I don't know how much of this is just due to
the name, but I like ladybugs. They're red and pretty, and they don't sting or
bite or swarm around my food.

...this all seems too pleasant, so feel free to educate me on how ladybugs are
actually the worst insects ever. :(

~~~
EvanAnderson
I haven't seen any ladybugs here in Western Ohio in the last 7 - 10 years. We
see a lot of a similarly-sized and shaped beetle that's orange with brown
spots, but the familiar red and black-spotted ladybugs I remember from my
youth seem to have disappeared. These orange doppelgängers come indoors in
droves as the fall weather gets cooler. They mass in clumps in corners of
windows around my house. They are not at all endearing like the ladybugs they
seem to have replaced.

~~~
EvanAnderson
Oh, ugh. I searched for an answer and came up with this:
[https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/Where-Have-All-The-
Ladyb...](https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/Where-Have-All-The-Ladybugs-
Gone)

It looks like we introduced the invasive Asian ladybirds and ended-up killing
off most of the native ladybirds. Now I have smelly orange beetles trying to
get into my house. Thanks, other humans!

(It's times like these that I think the last human dying can't come quickly
enough.)

~~~
jeena
I was in my summerhouse last year when a swarm showed up and within minutes
the whole house was getting black and they were trying to get into the house.
I made a video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xst1HYJK9Og](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xst1HYJK9Og)
Seeing them in such huge numbers is terrifying, I totally see why people
during biblical times thought the end was nigh.

That was October last year and they got into my car. Now in Sweden I saw some
of them crawling out of the car last month when it got a bit warmer.

~~~
dillonmckay
Offtopic, but does your summerhouse have wired internet access or LTE and if
so what speed (down/up) and cost? Just curious.

~~~
jeena
We use a local provider [http://www.trans.net.pl/](http://www.trans.net.pl/)
and they have some special setup I'm not sure what it's called but I think
it's long range wifi and they use a satelite dish as the antenna. The speed is
not super great, especially the uplink is to low for us with 1 Mbit/s and we
need to stream cctv from there continously, but the downlink is ok with 20
Mbit/s and we pay 56,12 zł which is about $15 per month.

~~~
dillonmckay
I live in the US, in a small city, and I have DSL. It is $50/mo and downlink
is 6Mbps, while upload is 768kbps. That is the fastest available speed.

~~~
jeena
At home in Sweden I have 250 down 100 up for around $38. I can get 1000/100
for $74 here too but I don't have use for such a huge down link.

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interfixus
From my childhood -and this would be around 1970 - I remember a huge and
sudden infestation of ladybugs. For the probably two days it lasted, lawns
were tinted red, the air - also out over the water - was visibly red-misted,
you couldn't walk anywhere without stepping on the critters, you couldn't
quite escape the buzzing and the sound of what sounded like munching, and
everywhere was an iron-like smell, some what reminiscent of peas (I can't
quite describe it, but to this day the right kind of odour will remind me of
ladybugs). And let me tell you: They bite! Walk outside uncovered, they would
alight on your skin and start nibbling, not terribly painful, but enough so be
unpleasant.

This was Northern Europe. I have seen swarms since then, but nothing remotely
compared to that massive outbreak.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
There were a lot in the UK in 1976. We had a huge growth in aphids after a
warm spring, the ladybirds followed on. I remember seeing a boat at our local
reservoir that was covered in them, even the sails, it had turned from white
to read.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35603972](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35603972)

~~~
interfixus
Oh yes, the long, hot summer of '76\. A glorrious time to be 16 and
unexpectedly having the house to myself for several weeks. But no ladybugs to
speak of, over here across the North Sea from you. Jellyfish, on the other
hand. I remember sailing through shallow waters almost solid with them. Also a
one-off, never seen anything like it since then.

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zigzaggy
Some might say the signs of the end are everywhere lol.

Seriously though, this reminds me of the cicada swarms that hit the south from
time to time. Those ARE quite like locusts.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Periodical Cicadas?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas)

~~~
zigzaggy
That looks like them, yes. When they show up they take over. They’re attracted
to the buzzing sound of a weedeater, I learned. They come and hang on to your
shirt and arms and land on your head. You can’t stop every 30 seconds to swat
them off, so you just learn to be friends and coexist.

It’s a biblical experience.

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neonate
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190606020026/https://www.latim...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190606020026/https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-
me-ln-ladybugs-on-radar-20190604-story.html)

[http://archive.is/tJ2LA](http://archive.is/tJ2LA)

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boulos
The article didn’t link to the actual radar from @NWSSanDiego, which seems to
be this tweet:
[https://twitter.com/NWSSanDiego/status/1136115889516867586](https://twitter.com/NWSSanDiego/status/1136115889516867586)

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bookofjoe
Could this bring down a plane?

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cobbzilla
hey ladybugs, get funky

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cobbzilla
no one got the beastie boys reference?

~~~
ajmurmann
Regardless of anyone gets the reference or not, that kind of topic that
doesn't further the discussion is generally unwelcome on HN and will get you
downvotes.

