A taste of honey
ONE is a compact beetle with a hard, brightly coloured dome marked by black spots, the other is a flimsy phantom with a translucent lime-green body, orange compound eyes and four oversized diaphanous wings fit to carry a fairy skyward. The tenacious ladybird and the ephemeral lacewing have nothing in common by way of appearance, but both hibernate and both produce overwintering eggs, which hatch into horror-film larvae with a voracious appetite for the same prey.
The larval stage of the rotund ladybird deservedly gets widespread credit for chomping 200 aphids a day and the adult culls a further 50 or so. The larva of the fragile lacewing, emerging from individual eggs suspended
