Monster swarm of ladybugs shows up on San Diego weather radar
A swarm of ladybugs flying through San Diego this week was so massive, it showed up on the National Weather Service’s radar — appearing to be a huge storm.
The weather agency confirmed Tuesday that the blob was alive.
“The large echo showing up on SoCal radar this evening is not precipitation, but actually a cloud of ladybugs termed a ‘bloom’,” the agency tweeted.
Based on the radar, the bloom appears to be about 80 miles by 80 miles, but the insects weren’t in a concentrated mass that large, Joe Dandrea, a meteorologist for the agency, told the Los Angeles Times.
Instead, they were spread throughout the sky at heights between 5,000 and 9,000 feet — and the most concentrated mass is only about 10 miles wide, according to the report.
After spotting the odd formation on the radar, Dandrea said he contacted a spotter near Wrightwood in the San Bernardino mountains.
“I don’t think they’re dense like a cloud,” Dandrea told the paper. “The observer there said you could see little specks flying by.”
About 200 species of ladybugs exist in California, and most are predators both as adults and larvae, the University of California Integrated Pest Management Program said.
Among those species are convergent lady beetles, which mate and migrate to the valley floor, gobble aphids and lay eggs in the early spring, after temperatures hit 65 degrees.
But by the early summer, once the aphid numbers decline, they migrate to higher elevations, according to the program.
It wasn’t immediately clear what species of ladybug showed up on the radar.
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