Catalyst Ladybird Survey

[Beatrice]

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/ladybirds/default.htm

Catalyst are asking people to get out in their gardens, find ladybirds, photograph an try to identify them, and submit the photos to the site to go on a "ladybird map". Looks like fun for those who like bugs and poking around in the garden :)

[Beatrice]

Here's a link to the Catalyst segment online:

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2408773.htm

[Izzát]

Looks like fun, and easy enough to involve bug lovers of any age me thinks :)

[~*heket*~]

I wish our camera was good enough!!!!!!!!!!!! My daughter would thrive on it!

[Asrathiel]

Hmm, my camera wouldn't get a good enough pic, but I can tell them about all the evil 28 spot ladybirds on my potatoes!!

[Beatrice]

We have the evil ones too. Grr.

[Janet]

Evil ladybirds? Crikey! :lol

[Beatrice]

B just found an interesting ladybird (we think) which wasn't on their gallery of common species. We tried using the program to identify a ladybird (http://www.ento.csiro.au/biology/ladybirds/lucid/lucidKey.html) but found it impossible to match up all the morphology without some kind of magnification, which we currently don't have. Poot. But we did find this very cool tool on ladybird morphology (http://www.ento.csiro.au/biology/ladybirds/morphology/morphology.html) which means we now know what the hell the lucidKey program is going on about :lol

[Ceres]

I don't believe I have seen any ladybirds at my new house! Isn't that sad.

[Beatrice]

Very odd. We have at least three different species here. That'd be the organic-gardening-by-neglect, perhaps :lol