All are characterized by having five usually pink petals above five sharp green sepals. Most species are armed with sharp prickles to discourage browsing by cattle and deer. Rose fruit called hips are high in vitamin C and are valuable as food for many wildlife species. The nine-spotted lady beetle was one of the most recently designated official wildlife symbols. Selected in 1989, ladybugs have always been highly regarded because both larvae and adults feed on pest aphids.
Adults can consume a hundred aphids a day.
Many children can recite at least part of the poem, Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home, Your house is on fire, your children will roam, Except little Nan, who sits in a pan Weaving gold laces as fast as she can. This English verse was an after-harvest warning to the ladybugs that fields were being burned to rid them of plant debris and insect pests. The lady beetle's children, or larvae, could crawl away from the burning vines, but the immobile pupa, Nan, remained fastened to the burning plants. Our state shell is abundant on eastern Long Island Sound, in shallow water of salt-water bays where the bottom is covered with sand or seaweed and on mud flats. Bay scallops feed on minute living things taken in with water used for breathing.