The Ladybug Spider!

The Ladybug Spider!


Ladybugs are cute and nice and harmless (except to aphids). Right? Well it seems that a sneaky member of the spider family wants to take advantage of this image. The Ladybug Spider (or Ladybird Spider for the Brits) uses its beautiful red and back body wrap to throw its prey off guard. You can see a Ladybug Spider in action in this YouTube video. (Link to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24-h6fXvTSs ) Beautiful macro photos of the LadyBird Spider and some other insects that have taken on the appearance of ladybugs are available on this blog. (Link to http://sgmacro.blogspot.com/2011/06/beauty-of-ladybird-mimicry.html )

The old saying that "you tell a leopard by its spots" apparently doesn't apply for ladybugs!

The Ladybug by Sharla Lee Shults


A beautiful video, The Ladybug, just came to my attention. (link to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hrrcznCqW8 ) It combines poetry, photography and music in a most pleasuring way. Many thanks to Sharla Lee Shults, the creator. You may want to take a moment to visit her blog, Catnipoflife. (link to http://catnipoflife.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/spirit-of-the-ladybug/#comments ) There she has many other inspiring poetic entries, mostly dealing with nature themes.

Flying Turtles?

A recent genetic study carried out at Boston University suggests that turtles evolved from the same ancestor as that of birds. This research challenges previous anatomical and Paleontological assessments that indicated that turtles either evolved from the ancestor of all reptiles or evolved from the ancestor of snakes and lizards. Nick Crawford, a post-graduate researcher in biology, and his colleagues attained these findings by using computational analysis to examine regions of the different animals' genomes. They recently published their results in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. Genetic analysis such as this is allowing us to better understand how branches of life diverged to give us the the many varieties of animals that currently inhabit the earth.

Even without knowing about such research it is easy to image the link between turtles and birds when one sees a sea turtle "flying" through the water. Shop for Flying Turtles and Flying Ladybugs at Turtle Treasures & the LadyBug Shop, where you can find a large collection of gifts for everyone!

Ladybugs as Jewelry Art

If you notice a beautiful ladybug on a friends blouse or suit, look more closely - it may be one of the realistic and beautiful creations of New York artist Diana Eng. 

Ms. Erg has recently created a line of very realistic ladybug pins that are all the rage.  And she has not created just one ladybug pin, but an entire collection.  She produces precise reproductions o f eleven different species of our favorite little creature.  Each is hand cast in silver and then carefully enameled in realistic colors.  Since each pin is the actual size of a real ladybug, this is very pains-taking art work!  Ms. Eng created the jewelry in part to draw attention to the rich bio-diversity of life in even a single family of insect.  However, if she had goes on to replicate every species of ladybug she has a lot of work to do.  There are approximately 5000 known species of ladybugs in the world!  On her blog Diana Eng shows how she created these ladybug pins. (Check out her blog on finger nail painting inspired by her pins.) Browse LadyBug Shop's large collection of ladybug jewelry, including ladybug necklaces, ladybug bracelets, ladybug pins and more!

Releasing Live Ladybugs in Your Garden

Here in lovely downtown Milford, Delaware we just had our 9th Annual Bug & Bud Festival.  And as they have every year since the Festival began our wonderful friends at Ladies in Red ( link to in Bend, Oregon sent the LadyBug Shop a carton of live ladybugs to distribute during the Festival.  They do this completely free of charge to us - they even pay for the postage!  In turn we give the packets of ladybugs out to families attending the Festival.  As always this was a big hit.

If you have not released live ladybugs in your garden before, you might want to see what to expect.  The Creative Salad ( link to http://www.thecreativesalad.com/2012/04/24/the-ladybug-release/ ) just ran a nice story with pictures describing the process.  You need to be patient if you are releasing the ladybugs to rid your garden of aphids.  While the ladybugs you release will likely disperse quickly, you need only a few to set up housekeeping in your garden. Both the adult ladybug and the young larva have a ravenous appetite for aphids.  An adult can eat fifty aphids in a day and a larva can eat twenty five!

Ladybug Girl Book Series

There is a new super-hero on the block - Ladybug Girl. Ladybug Girl is the star of a book series created by artist David Soman and his wife author Jacky Davis. They were inspired by their daughter and son. Lulu can't get anyone to pay attention or play with her so she creates her own adventures as Ladybug Girl. These beautifully told and illustrated books tell the story of an independent little girl and her friends - both human and animal. Her best friend are her basset hound Bingo and her cohort Sam (otherwise known as Bumblebee Boy). The book in the series was released in 2008. There are now at least nine books in the Ladybug Girl series and one book about just about Bumblebee Boy. The Ladybug Girl books have now reached the status of being a New York Times best seller.

As part of a digital literacy initiative from the Penguin Group and the Pearson Foundation one of the books in the series Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad is available now in the free We Give Books digital library.

View lots of fun ladybug gifts, perfect for little girls!
Check it out - you will love the Ladybug Girl!

Milford's 9th Annual Bug & Bud Festival

On Saturday, April 28 Milford, Delaware (hometown of the LadyBug Shop) will hold its 9th Annual Bug & Bud Festival. This year event goers will enjoy over 150 food and merchant vendors, downtown businesses, activities for kids, paddle boat rides on the Mispillion River and live entertainment by several local musical and dance groups.  Based on the turnout in previous years, it is anticipated that at least 10,000 people will attend the festival and enjoy beautriful downtown Milford.

The Bug & Bud Festival is a celebration of two of Milford’s most cherished symbols, the ladybug and nature. The significance of the ladybug in Delaware is tied to Milford when a local second grade class petitioned the Delaware State Legislature in 1973 to accept the ladybug as the official State Bug, Click here to read the store of the Delaware State Bug! The festival also serves as a celebration of Arbor Day and Milford’s designation as a USA Tree City.

Every year the Festival starts with a parade lead by Dan and Rhonda Bond, owners of the LadyBug Shop!

We hope you can join us for this year's celebration.  Details about the Bug & Bud Festival are available at the Downtown Milford Inc. website.

Ultraslo Video of Ladybug Taking Flight

I just came across two great videos on YouTube produced by a company called Ultraslo. These are extremely slow motion films that capture all the details of a ladybug taking flight. You can view them here.

Without the use of slow motion films you can not ready see the amazing structure of a ladybug's body as she opens her elytra (the colorful shell that protects her wings) and gracefully unfolds her wings before taking off.

Ultraslo is a film production company founded by Alan Teitel, a two time Emmy Award winning cinematographer who specializes in creating unique images in slow motion and 3D.

Crazy about ladybugs? Visit the LadyBug Shop in Downtown Milford Delaware and shop for over 500 unique ladybug gifts ranging from t shirts, to jewelry and much more!

Making a Ladybug From Balloons

If you have agile fingers, like to entertain people and are not afraid of popping balloons, try making ladybugs out of balloons at your next ladybug theme party.  Kids are fascinated watching a ladybug being created out of a few simple balloons.  A great way to learn how to "twist" balloons is by watching videos on your computer.  You can find several good videos showing how to do make a really cute ladybug on YouTube.

People who create animals and other things out of balloons are called Twisters, Balloon Benders or Balloon Artists.  In many areas you can find someone who does this professionally and you can hire them to entertain at your party.  A good Web source for learning about balloon twisting and one that has a directory for local professional twisters is BalloonHQ.

But there is no reason you can't "twist" ladybugs out of balloons yourself - with a lot of practice.  Of course it is also best to have the right materials.  Balloons that are good for twisting are specially made and can be ordered on the Web or purchased in party shops.  You will notice in most videos that balloons are referred to by numbers.  (For example, the most common size of twisting balloons is called a "260", as it is approximately two inches in diameter and 60 inches in length.)   Balloon twisting as a form of entertainment has been traced back to 1939.

So get some balloons and be the star of your next party.  But don't forget to put in some practice time beforehand!

Amazing Sculpture Created with Ladybugs

The beautiful sculpture show here, which represents "a goddess of nature" is called "The Lady Bug".
The artist who created the sculpture is Gabor Fulop, who is from Bulgaria. He used artificial resin to create the shapes and then painted each ladybug by hand The thousands of life size bugs (20,000 to be exact) were then glued to a model of the female form.
This unusual combinations of the tiny ladybug with the female form is striking due to the contrast of sizes, shapes and colors. The lady appears to holding a cluster of ladybugs which are flowing out of her hands.
A beautiful portfolio of photos of "The Lady Bug" can be seen at


http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/gabor-fulop-mysterious-ladybug-sculpture

Crazy about Ladybugs? Visit http://www.ladybug-shop.com/ for over 500 unique ladybug gifts!