Today I spent most of the day at a friend's wedding. It was a rare sunny, warm October day, and the beetles were swarming. Harmonia axyridis, to be exact: ladybugs from Asia, hit-men imported to take care of aphids and scale insects plaguing many crops here in the US. Unfortunately, these efficient aphid-killers proved to be real goons-- indiscriminately killing their own ladybird-kind and other beneficial insects. In addition, H. axyridis likes to overwinter in our houses, amassing in hoards under eaves and in crevices. They also bite. They're not nice bugs.
One of the other delightful tricks of H. axyridis (and other ladybeetles) is something called reflex bleeding. When something scary happens to the ladybeetle, such as when a lovely girl in white sits upon a little Harmonia beetle hidden in the folds of her voluminous dress, the squeezed beetle panics. The beetle tears open specialized weak spots in its cuticle, allowing its yellow-orange hemolymph (blood) to bubble out in a little droplet. This defensive secretion, in addition to making an unsightly orange stain on a white dress, will release a bitter chemical and a noxious odor.
Sometimes I too bleed uncontrollably. A little thing can set me off and before I know it I'm pouring out bitter chemicals and a noxious odor. It can't be helped. Is the burst of ugly emotions that I experience --like the ladybeetle's reflex bleeding-- meant to protect me from being eaten by an even uglier fate?
Photo by Flickr user Ombrosoparacloucycle, licensed for re-use under a Creative Commons license.
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