And also, the Harlequin Ladybird.
True, it's not one of our nice ladybirds, but is still called a ladybird:
in my childhood they signified good chocolate and wrappers i had to hide while making excuses for not eating my tea.
usually followed by a thick ear.
I love eating chocolate ladybugs.
Not to mention how much the Asian ones STANK when you squished them! My parents' house became infested and my sister's bedroom smelled horrible for months afterwards - they had to pull the siding off the house and everything to get them out! Yick!
Unfortunately, the Asian ones tend to eat the beneficial and benign ladybugs we're so used to!
I can't quite work out where this Thread belongs. Mods have posted in it without shifting it so perhaps they don't know either.
However it wasn't written by a ladybird new to the Forum so it doesn't belong here. (The Thread began its life in Introductions!)
They can fly > Travel?
They eat aphids > Food and Drink?
They are very active > Fitness/Activities?
Ladybird, Ladybird fly away home > Housing in General?
They sometimes invade a house > Complaints Corner?
They are supposed to bring good luck > Finance?
They are living beings > Pet Corner
I think you can actually buy them > Pet Trading Post.
O what a mental strain it is to be a Mod and have to make such important decisions with such far-reaching consequences.
None of the above Forums seems quite right; I see ladybirds quite often in summer but we don't have a 'Summer' Forum. I think I'll just pretend I see them every day and move it to Daily Life.
They will infiltrate your home and in cold weather nest anywhere they can (under siding, your roof, etc.) Once it warms up, they are all over the place. They smell like bad friut, secrete a nasty substance. If you manage to squish one, they have a pungent odor. Dont even try to vacuum them up.. (yes they will swarm in your home). And yes, they do bite.. There is really not a way to get rid of them... If you kill 100, within 2 hours you will see 1000 more.
I knew it. Someone comes up with some new aspect - it should have gone into Complaints Corner after all.
Reminds me of my father getting some preying mantis and ladybugs for our garden in Cali when I was little. I think there are plants you can cultivate specifically to attract ladybugs to your garden if you are interested in a more "green" approach to gardening.
Also... in Florida usually the ladybugs we saw were blue .
The larvae are even more evil. Like the fully grown ladybirds, they have neat spots but they are far more aggressive when it comes to slaughtering aphids. And they can't fly off as easily so they are sure to finish the job. You can buy cultures of them for natural pest control.
If it's on food products it could well be the logo of IP-Suisse. This is a kind of qualility control for agriculture, essentially similar to Bio but not quite as strict.
I thought they identified safehouses for children (ie not affiliated with the Catholic church errr ahhh sorry), particualry when walking home for lunch. I asked the wifi and she didnt know. So basically they serve no real functional purpose except symbolic.
That nasty swarming ladybird problem . . .
It's not really a problem in Europe is it?
It's funny if I think about it, but the name changes in context. If you talk about the red ones with black spots you'd normally call them Mariächäferli (=Mary's little bugs=Ladybugs), but if there are black ones with red spots around you call the red ones Ängeli (=little angels) and the black ones Tüfeli (= little devils). And yes, the word Glückschäferli (=lucky bugs) is only used for the things like chocolate bugs, pictures on postcards together with clover leaves, horse shoes etc.
That's because you're so miserable! Ladybugs bring bad luck to miserable people, good luck to everyone else.
In Swiss French, they can be called 'bête à Bon Dieu', or something like 'God's creature'. They're supposed to bring your messages to God.
When I was a child, we used to say that if the ladybird stays on you more than 30 seconds before flying away, you can make a wish and it's gonna come true.