Well, do ladybugs hibernate or not?
When I first read that, yes Ladybugs do hibernate, I don’t know.
I felt like I had a flicker of cognitive dissonance.
Most insects die in the winter. Ladybugs are little insects too.
Ladybugs die in winter.
The wonder of nature is at it again though, perplexing and surprising me at every turn.
See, ladybugs hibernate underground in giant clusters – and they have a lifespan of 2 to 3 years.
That’s just incredible, if you ask me.
Ladybugs hibernate under shelter in huge orange clusters sometimes the size of basketballs. Out west, people hunt for these overwintering masses in the mountains. They take them down to warehouses in the valleys, which pay handsomely. Then, according to Will Barker, the mail-order houses ship them to people who want them to eat garden aphids. They’re mailed in the cool of night in boxes of old pine cones. It’s a clever device: How do you pack a hundred living ladybugs? The insects naturally crawl deep into the depths of the pine cones; the sturdy “branches” of the opened cones protect them through all the bumpings of transit.
-Annie Dillard, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek
