Ladybugs sandwich recipe
Ingredients: sliced loaf, butter, tomatoes, pitted olives, parsley leaves. Preparation: cut the loaf into thin slices, each of which is also cut in half. Brush all halves of the slices with butter and garnish with parsley leaves. Cut the tomatoes in half, cut each half crosswise in the form of wings. Make a ladybug head from half an olive. Make black spots for the wings from small pieces of olives, insert them into the wings, piercing small holes with a knife. Place the tomatoes on the loaf slices, and also decorate the sides with parsley. Very tasty and unusual!
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about the author
A teacher, philologist, she was engaged in local history work at a school in the village of Magnitka, Chelyabinsk region.
Author of several projects on the history of the Urals. One of the projects is dedicated to the post-war history of the village where the German prisoner of war camp was located.
Lyubov Alyamkina’s stories were published in various magazines and newspapers: “Ural Pathfinder” (Ekaterinburg), “Arguments of the Week” (Chelyabinsk), “District Life” (Kusa), “Russian Germany” (Berlin), “Russian Germans” (Moscow) and etc.
LADYBUG
There was one bug living in the forest. It was so small that it could fit on your little finger. There were tiny black peas on its bright orange wings.
This bug's name was Ladybug.
One day, Ladybug was basking in the sun on a white chamomile petal. How many of them grew here in the clearing!
Ladybug lived very happily and thought that there was nothing better in the world than her forest.
And suddenly children ran into the clearing with noise and cheerful screams.
“Oh, look, Ladybug,” one boy shouted joyfully and carefully took her off the flower, “how pretty she is!”
Ladybug fearlessly walked along the boy's hand, and the children jumped around and sang:
Ladybug,
Fly to the sky
Your kids are there
They eat sweets.
Ladybug thought that this was true and, spreading her wings, flew up. But she didn’t find any of her children there, and no one treated her to candy in heaven. Sad, she sat down on a bush and cried. She so wanted to see her children and eat at least one piece of candy.
At this time, two swallows were sitting on a branch nearby. They hid among the leaves of a tree from a suddenly blowing cold wind.
“Autumn is coming,” said one of them, “and we will fly to warm countries again.”
Ladybug thought:
- What if we fly away with them?
“Take me with you!” she asked the birds.
“We don’t feel sorry, we don’t feel sorry,” they sang.
And when autumn came, the birds rose high, high into the sky, flying to warm lands, not forgetting about the Ladybug, who was so warm and cozy among the feathers of one of the birds. Forests, steppes, mountains, and rivers rushed by below. Ladybug was so tired from the journey that she fell asleep unnoticed.
“Get up, we’ve already arrived,” the swallow woke her up.
It was so wonderful all around! Palm trees, strange plants, bright flowers - Ladybug has never seen such divine beauty. Birds in bright plumage walked among the fragrant bushes.
“I’ll stay here forever!” thought Ladybug.
She sat on an olive branch and thanked the swallow.
“Goodbye!” said the bird. “When we return home, we will fly to you.”
Ladybug didn't answer.
She didn’t even notice how close the Peacock came in his festive attire. He squinted one eye and began to peck at the berries.
Suddenly, Ladybug felt a terrible blow, from which she fell to the ground and miraculously remained alive. It was the Peacock who hit her with his beak. Everything happened so quickly that poor Ladybug barely recovered from her fear and spent the whole day sitting on the ground under a fallen leaf.
Now she had to be careful and hide at times.
Nobody knew her in this country. The grasshoppers did not greet her in the morning, the caterpillar did not crawl past her, having managed to tell the forest news, butterflies with fabulously beautiful wings simply did not want to notice her, flying past indifferently.
And most importantly, no one sang a song to her and was not happy when they met.
Life has become so sad and lonely!
And when the familiar swallows appeared in the sky again, returning to their homeland, where spring had come again, Ladybug’s heart was ready to jump out of her chest with joy.
“I want to go home so bad!” she shouted.
“I know,” answered the swallow, “I thought so.”
So Ladybug found herself back in her native forest.
Now she was not offended by the children’s song, she was happy and laughed with them.
WALK
The little badger lived with his mother in his hole. She warned him all the time:
-Baby, don’t go out alone, because you haven’t grown up yet. You may be in danger.
But one day, when mom was not at home, the little badger got bored at home alone, and he decided to go outside.
The sun was shining so gently, the breeze was blowing so gently that the baby immediately forgot about caution and ran along the forest path
And suddenly he felt that someone had bitten him painfully on the nose. It turned out to be a large mosquito, which was in no hurry to fly away.
“So that’s what you are, Danger!” exclaimed the little badger.
The mosquito laughed:
“My bite will make your nose hurt a little, that’s all, but the Danger is completely different.”
“What does she look like?” asked the baby.
“It’s green, big and croaks so disgustingly!” explained the mosquito. And he flew away.
The little badger walked further. His feet were buried in the greenery of soft moss, the flowers nodded their heads, welcoming him. Suddenly a frog jumped onto a rotten stump.
“Kwa, kwa,” she greeted the baby, looking at his striped back with curiosity.
The little badger's heart sank with fear. But the frog smiled welcomingly at him and asked him to play with her.
“Let's jump rope?” she suggested.
“Come on,” the little badger answered joyfully.
Having played enough, he asked her:
- Tell me about Danger.
“She has wings and a sharp beak,” croaked the frog and immediately hid in the thick grass.
Before the little badger had time to take even a few steps, a magpie sat down on the path. The little badger huddled to the ground. But the magpie, looking at him friendly, handed him red berries in her beak, so large and ripe that the baby could not refuse such a treat.
“Eat, they’re so tasty,” the magpie chattered, “I know a clearing where there are a lot of them.”
“So you’re not Danger?” asked the kid, gobbling up berries on both cheeks.
“Where is the Danger, where?” the magpie chattered again, looking around.
-What is she like?
“So you haven’t seen her yet?” the new acquaintance was surprised. “She’s red, with a bushy tail.”
And the magpie quickly flew away.
The kid also decided to hurry home. At that moment a squirrel appeared next to him.
“Oh!” cried the little badger.
Now he was convinced that he had encountered real danger.
“Why are you scared?” the squirrel was surprised. “Do you want me to treat you to some nuts?”
“I’m afraid of you because you’re red and have a tail,” the little badger explained to her.
“But I’m not a fox,” she explained, guessing who she was mistaken for, and instantly jumped onto a tree and threw him nuts from there.
The little badger was so hungry after a long walk that he ate the delicious nuts with gusto.
And when he came home, his mother was already waiting for him and was terribly worried.
The little badger told her about his adventures.
“The danger is different for everyone, everyone has their own,” his mother explained to him and affectionately stroked his head.
Social structure and reproduction
Photo: Ladybugs
All ladybugs are solitary. Only during the mating season do males use a specific smell to look for a female to mate with. This usually happens in early spring and soon the female lays up to 400 eggs on the lower surface of the leaves. They are oval in shape and can be yellow or orange. The female chooses a place for laying closer to the aphid colony so that the offspring are provided with food. This is the only manifestation of caring for their offspring. Most often, she dies after this.
After a couple of weeks, the larvae appear. Their body is covered with hairs and has a variegated color; the pattern combines yellow and brown spots. In the first days, the larvae eat the remaining egg shells and unfertilized eggs, then go in search of aphids. The stage lasts from 4 to 7 weeks, after which the formation of a pupa occurs, which then attaches to the edge of the leaflet, where its further transformation occurs.
At the end of it, after 8-10 days, the skin peels off from the pupa like a stocking to the end of the abdomen. A full-fledged individual ladybug appears, which gradually acquires its usual bright color. At first, its elytra are pale in color; by this feature one can easily distinguish an adult from a young one. Young bugs are ready to reproduce at 3 months of life, some only at six months - it all depends on the quality of nutrition and environmental conditions.
Benefits and harms
Ladybug on hand.
A small beetle brings great benefits. By eating a huge number of pests, they help in the fight against them. There are also special farms where these insects are raised and can be purchased if necessary.
In the 19th century, in the United States, the grooved bug hunted citrus fruits, and it massively destroyed plantations. To solve this problem, it was decided to get a rhodolia ladybug, which successfully coped with the task.
It is worth noting a few important points that you should be wary of.
- The Asian ladybug shows aggression and can bite a person.
- Large crowds can disturb people.
- The liquid that they secrete for self-defense causes allergies.
- The beetles carry mites and a number of infections.
- Some are pests.
- There is a spider and an insect that looks like a ladybug.
Population and species status
Photo: Ladybug
The population of ladybugs has decreased significantly due to active control of aphids. These little bugs simply have nothing to eat. Due to rapid reproduction and a small number of natural enemies, the population is able to recover in a short period of time if food is available. The status of the species is currently stable. At this time, only some rare varieties of these beetles are under threat of complete extinction, for example, the Australian blue and pointless ones.
Interesting fact: In search of food, a hungry ladybird larva can travel up to 12 meters, which is a huge distance for insects.
Trying to restore the population of beneficial bugs artificially, people sometimes, even with their good intentions, on the contrary, cause significant damage to it. In recent years, millions of individuals, specially bred ladybugs, have been released into their natural habitat, which, due to obvious mutations, changed the nature of their feeding and chose their own relatives as victims. All this caused the death of a huge number of beneficial bugs in all European countries. A thoughtful approach to this problem is needed without undue interference in the natural course of processes in nature.
Appearance and features
Photo: Ladybug in nature
The size of the ladybird ranges from 3.5 to 10 mm. The bug's head is small and motionless. The eyes are relatively large, the antennae of 8-11 segments are very mobile and flexible. The body of a ladybug consists of a pronotum, a thorax, three pairs of tenacious legs, an abdomen, and wings with elytra. The insect's pronotum is convex, often with spots of various colors and shapes. Bugs fly using the back pair of wings, while the front ones, in the process of evolution, were formed into strong elytra, which now serve as protection for the main pair of soft wings. Not all ladybugs have the usual scarlet color and black dots on their backs.
From all their diversity, the following varieties can be distinguished:
- two-spot - a bug with a body size of up to 5 mm. It has a black pronotum, and the bright red elytra are decorated with two large black spots;
- seven-spot - has a size of 7-8 mm, widespread throughout Europe. On its red back there are two white spots and 7 black ones;
- twelve-spotted - a red or pink bug with an elongated body shape and 12 black spots;
- with thirteen spots - distinguished by an elongated body and a dark brown or red-brown back, the spots can merge with each other;
- fourteen-pointed - a characteristic feature of the elytra is yellow or black;
- seventeen-spotted - the size of the insect is no more than 3.5 mm, it has a bright yellow back with black dots;
- blue - found only in Australia;
- ocellated - characterized by a large body size up to 10 mm. All black dots on the red or yellow back of the insect are framed by light rims;
- pointless - their size does not exceed 4.5 mm, they have a dark brown back color, their body is covered with fine hairs. They are extremely rare in nature.
Not all varieties of ladybug benefit people. The alfalfa beetle is a pest for many agricultural species. crops, it actively eats young shoots, destroys the harvest of beets, cucumbers, and so on. The bug is distinguished by its small size, up to 4 mm, it has a red back strewn with 24 dots.
№5
Like larvae, adults have a fairly voracious appetite. Almost all species feed on soft-bodied insects; in particular, aphids form the basis of their diet. However, in addition to aphids, they also feed on whiteflies and mites. A hungry adult can easily eat up to 50 aphids in a day. According to scientists, during its entire life one ladybug eats about 5,000 aphids. It is for this reason that these insects are highly valued by gardeners.
№14
Harmonia axyridis, also known as the Harlequin ladybug, was introduced into the United States from Asia in the 1900s to control agricultural pests. Since this species is the most aggressive of the Coccinellidae, this has led not only to a decline in the number of aphids, but also to a decline in the numbers of other species of the family Coccinellidae in this country.
Features of character and lifestyle
Photo: Red ladybug
All varieties of ladybugs choose an isolated lifestyle and form groups only for flying to warm regions or wintering in a secluded place. These huge groups can number up to 40 million individuals. You can also notice clusters of bugs during their mating season. All these bugs do not hesitate to feast on the larvae of their relatives, but only in the absence of a sufficient number of aphids and other food. But there are varieties of ladybugs that purposefully destroy their fellow creatures.
Interesting fact: The yellow marbled ladybug was specially bred as an effective biological weapon against agricultural pests, but it was because of it that some varieties of these bugs were in danger of complete extermination, since the marbled ladybug destroyed them in huge quantities along with other insect pests .
These insects are active all day, they slowly crawl from one plant to another in search of food. Given enough food, the lifespan of some individuals can reach two years or even more, but this happens extremely rarely. The main part dies much earlier, before reaching the age of one year, and there are many reasons for this: from lack of nutrition to environmental pollution.
