The French call it “the animal of God,” the Germans call it “the sheep of God,” the British call it “the bug of Our Lady.” Why did the Almighty need a red bug 3 mm long with seven black spots on its back?
Why exactly it, a ladybug, and not some other insect, in childhood we persistently overcome with strange requests: "Ladybug, fly to heaven, bring me bread, black and white, but not burnt." It turns out that there is no misunderstanding.
The legend of the origin of the ladybug
A bug can really do a lot. She was the wife of a thunder god. Irresistible beauty, in a dazzling red mantle, she graciously accepted courtship, including other gods. The unfaithful wife was the current ladybug. The Thunderer finally guessed and began to take revenge terribly: he set fire to the sky and turned the beauty, together with her beloved mantle, into a red bug.
What do the dots on the back of a ladybug mean?
With seven black dots on her back, these are her seven children, who became seven days of the week. Since then, the ladybug has atone for his sins. As a daughter of the Sun, she regularly flies from earth to heaven and transmits to the pope the requests of people. I must say, from century to century they are pretty monotonous. For example, “Shchedryk is a thigh (ladybug in Ukraine), give a dumpling!”
Ladybug Benefits
But this does not warp the ex-wife of the Thunder God, she is already used to everything on earth and works like a bee. In the short breaks between requests and flights to heaven, the ladybug manages to do a lot more. Her quickness and business qualities are admired on all five continents. Ladybug - a predator, devouring small pests of gardens and fields in countless numbers.
It so happened that in California pests incredibly multiplied, destroying entire citrus plantations. No chemicals helped, and then the Americans went to Australia, where ladybugs bred at that time, brought them from there, and the citrus pests were destroyed and the citrus plantations were left alone.
In Transcaucasia, a ladybug also saved local gardeners. It is not known where they got it from, but when the leaves of lemons and oranges began to wither away under the onslaught of pests sucking the juice from the leaves, agronomists caught a population of ladybirds somewhere and poisoned the beetle against their tormentors. For several days, a ladybug brought order to the gardens, and at the same time set about planting tea, which some pest also consumed, although they did not ask for it.
Ladybug larvae
Ladybug gray with red spots are also predators. They, as soon as they can move, immediately begin to destroy the aphids that are now in every garden.
Ladybug migration
Proverb and proverbial collector Vladimir Dal wrote the following saying: “Ladybug, flying beyond the Volga, it's warm there, it's cold here.”Ladybugs travel in colonies. Once, having no longer found anyone to hunt on the Volga, they flew with clouds in the mountains of the Caucasus, and then into Central Asia. Hungry time for them comes in the middle of summer, then ladybugs fly to the mountains, where it is cooler to oversleep the hungry time.
How they find their way, whether by the Sun, by the stars, or, like pigeons, by the Earth’s magnetic field, science is unknown, but they certainly have a “house instinct” that directs them to your garden, where they will always find food, and you rid the garden of aphids, worms and other pests. In ancient Indian, the ladybug is called: “The one whose shepherd Indra” (this is their main god), so teach the children to take care of a small bug with a red back, designed to help you in the garden.
