Mhm, I did not know how many experts on squirrels and Eichhörnchen are here to find.
So, maybe it's time for the next "German" conspiracy theory on wildlife and it's again an animal with a red coat.
The "German" red seven-black-point ladybug is endangered by the Asian ladybug, which looks different, can have several colors and more points. The Asian ladybug is often orange or yellow but unfortunately, it is not a lovestory like in this video ...
... and it is not like the first news about this danger explained, because at first ca. 5 years ago, the theorists thought it to be similar as in my description of the "great German squirrel conspiracy theory":
There were much less European & German ladybugs to be found but many more Asian ladybugs, so all theorists thought, these are Asian ladybugs which are more "lively", "powerful", "resistent against certain viruses" and "superior" to the German red red ladybug which are in danger to disappear because these Asian ladybugs are maneaters - hrm - ladybug-eaters and cannibals and because they are much faster than the European, they will kill all those poor German ladybugs. (Conspiracy theorists certainly believe that bugs are usually behaving like the humans in the countries of their origins and they certainly know how lively all these Asians are!)
But those theories about the Asian killer ladybugs were wrong because it is much more complicated than everyone believed. In fact, both ladybugs - from Europe and from Asia are cannibals and both eat usually lots of aphids but also larvae of other insects as well as of other ladybugs, but the more aggressive European ladybugs can also eat weak grown-up Asian ladybugs - and this is their certain death!
Incredible, but the Asian ladybugs seemed to have mutated during the last 10 years in their fight against bacterias and viruses by inventing something which is now a subject of Europe's best insectologists at the Sorbonne university in Paris, who say, these new Asian ladybugs do now have an ability like bugs from a science-fiction movie.
Their blood circulatory system does not kill the usually dangerous bacterias or viruses any more, it obviously can identify potentially dangerous microsporidiaes (fungal infectious paraites), bacterias and viruses and then, they are encapsulated in a mix of fat coating and unknown jelly combination and integrated in the circulatory system.
When they are eaten by the more aggressive European ladybugs, the acids of their digestion are dissolving the insulating coats of the encapsulated bacterias & viruses of their victims and every European ladybugs is dying within hours after having eaten an Asian ladybug - the same seems to happen to other insects which are eating Asian ladybugs because they are suddenly overflowed with several - for insects - dangerous microsporidiaes, bacterias and viruses!
The biologists at the Sorbonne are of the opinion that the European ladybugs will survive in European forests but if they cannot follow the Asian ladybugs in such a mutation, they are really in danger as long as they try to eat Asian ladybugs.
One professor in Paris is already dreaming of inventing something similar for higher life forms like domestic animals, but even he says, ladybugs are not so complicated as human beings. (Ouch! - touché !)
en.wikipedia.org
de.wikipedia.org
Der Marienkäfer ist ein beliebtes Glückssymbol. Doch ihm selbst drohen derzeit eher unglückliche Zeiten. Seine asiatischen Verwandten verdrängen den sympathischen Krabbler zunehmend.
www.swr.de
In any case, they are surprising enough when you look at their folding system for their wings: