Harbingers? Maybe, Maybe Not

This is about the palest multi-colored Asian lady beetle Crumby has espied, ever. It is also little as they go. At any rate, the common name for this one is apt.

Harmonia axyridis and Coccinella semptempunctata are both regularly encountered at the CB. Besides the CB, they have in common, large size for lady beetles, both are introduced from foreign parts, and both are perhaps more common than the native lady beetles at the CB. That’s excepting the runt Scrymnus which can be downright numerous.

Besides these twain, introduced, theoretically beneficial predators, the CB also sports the European mantis (Mantis religiosa). The fact is, Mantis religiosa is the only mantis we have identified to species so far. So are all these introduced predators really doing any good? Well, they are good for the green lynx spiders. Yet apart from good value as spider chow, are they generally good? Or, are they actually evil, harbingers of doom? Probably needs more study.