Ladybugs, 720,000 of them, have been released in the middle of New York City. They will help protect one of the city's biggest apartment complexes from pests.
Over the next few weeks, the ladybugs will crawl into plants in the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complex. They'll search for insects whose smell attracts them - including many pests.
The bugs were purchased at US$16.50 (NT$537) for 2,000. Because of the bugs, the complex's owner can avoid using chemical pesticides.
PHOTO:AP
"In most cases, we reach for a can of pesticide, and we kill not only the 'bad guys,' but the 'good guys,'" said Eric Vinje, owner of the company that supplied the ladybugs. "All we're doing here is putting more of the 'good guys' [in] to tip the scale."
Vinje said a ladybug can eat up to 50 pests a day, plus insect eggs.
(Staff Writer, with AP)
有七十二萬隻的瓢蟲被釋放在紐約市中央，牠們將協助紐約市內一幢最大的複合式公寓免於害蟲侵擾。
在接下來的幾週內，這些小瓢蟲將慢慢進駐「史黛威森鎮與彼得酷派村」複合式住宅區中。牠們會在植物上爬行，並循著氣味尋找小昆蟲，其中包括了許多害蟲。
這些小瓢蟲兩千隻要價十六塊半美元（新台幣五百三十七元），牠們可以讓住宅區的居民不必使用化學殺蟲劑就能除蟲。
「大部份的情況下，我們隨手就拿殺蟲劑來噴。這樣一來，我們不只除掉『害蟲』，也把一些『益蟲』給殺了，」提供瓢蟲的公司的負責人艾瑞克．芬傑說：「我們的做法就是放更多『好蟲』進去，讓牠們在裡面發揮作用。」
芬傑說，一隻瓢蟲一天就可以吃掉五十隻害蟲，其中也包括了蟲卵。
（美聯社∕翻譯：袁星塵）
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