Ladybugs in February

The overwintering ladybugs tucked in the leaves of our tangerine tree are gone.

Sunny temperatures hit 75 degrees, and off they went. Guess they thought it was spring.

Anyhow, they made a glorious sight as emerged from the folds of a tangerine leaf. One perched on the top of a tangerine tree and then crawled up and down the leaf. 

Natalia Vandenberg, a USDA employee with the Systematic Entomology Lab, Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, identified these as an introduced species, Coccinella septempunctata.

Ladybugs in February...