Ladybug swarm is so huge it shows up on National Weather Service radar
Fly away home, indeed.
Aw, ladybugs ("ladybirds" to Brits). Sweet little red beetles with black dots that are sometimes a nuisance and mostly just ignored. Until now.
There's a massive group of ladybugs -- called a "bloom" -- that's so huge it's actually showing up on radar in southern California.
On Tuesday night, the San Diego office of the National Weather Service tweeted out a video of radar in San Diego. But what appeared to be rain clouds turned out to be something else entirely. Let's just say things got dotty.
"The large echo showing up on SoCal radar this evening is not precipitation, but actually a cloud of ladybugs termed a 'bloom,'" the tweet reported.
According to CBS Los Angeles, the blob of bugs is 80 miles long and 80 miles wide, and is flying between 5,000 and 9,000 feet high. (Disclosure: CBS is CNET's parent site.)
Twitter users had a few things to say about how the rare occurrence uh, bugged them. "You sure it's not bees on a revenge mission?" joked one.
Some complained that the bugs bite, but most took a practical view. "Well, better than locusts," wrote one Twitter user.