Craig K. Lorenz
It’s been a while, Carl Zimmer! Welcome back to our pages and thanks for this new consideration of what is included in the definition of animal migration, a pair of words normally associated with big mammals and birds:
These Animal Migrations Are Huge — and Invisible
Swarms of insects move across continents each year. Scientists used radar to track one species and discovered a vast ecological force.
Ladybugs briefly took over the news cycle.
In this radar image, green indicates a swarm of ladybugs over Southern California. National Weather Service, via Associated Press
Meteorologists at the National Weather Service were looking over radar images in California on the night of June 4 when they spotted what looked like a wide swath of rain. But there were no clouds.
The meteorologists contacted an amateur weather-spotter directly under the mysterious disturbance. He wasn’t getting soaked by rain. Instead, he saw ladybugs. Everywhere.
Radar apparently had picked up a cloud of migrating ladybugs spread across 80 miles, with a dense core ten miles wide floating 5,000 feet to 9,000 feet in the air. As giant as the swarm was, the meteorologists lost track of it. The ladybugs disappeared into the night. Continue reading
Organikos 