A swarm of ladybugs in San Diego County, California, was so giant that it was visible on the National Weather Service’s radar.
Just…WHAT!?
The blob on the NWS image looks big enough that it could easily be a massive rain cloud, and that’s what meteorologists thought it was at first.
But in fact, it’s a swarm of ladybugs 80 miles by 80 miles large. The most concentrated mass is about 10 miles wide.
The ladybugs were flying at elevations of 5000 to 9000 feet. Viewers in the area said they were visible, but it wasn’t quite as dramatic as it sounds.
“I don’t think they’re dense like a cloud,” Joe Dandrea, a meteorologist with NWS San Diego, told Los Angeles Times. “The observer said you could see little specks flying by.”
The swarm was heading south toward Mexico. After sunset, spectators lost sight of it, and it was never relocated.
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Ladybug gatherings like this are known as “blooms,” and they’re standard procedure. The insects migrate to another geographical area, triggered by cues like temperature and day length.
Usually, though, they don’t move all at the same time in such a large group.
“But somehow, the combination of cues must have all sort of synchronized so that they went at a very similar time,” entomologist John Losey told Smithsonian Magazine.
Photo Credit: iStock
A randomly enormous swarm of insects certainly seems apocalyptic — or at least the result of climate change. But John says it could also be a sign that ladybug populations in California are booming right now.
It’s not clear which species of ladybug was in the swarm. California is home to 200 different species.
