Blue Fairies

Ever try to catch a fairy? It's actually not that hard. They move pretty slow, but trying to take a picture of one in the air, well that is a different story altogether.

They are out there. Sky blue, sitting on a little cloud of fluff, drifting slowly here and there. They are tiny little guys. Most of the time I see them in the fall. I remember being visited by them when I was waiting for the bus at my neighbor's house. We would get a little bit ahead of them, (they move pretty slowly) and cup our hands around their forward trajectory. Inevitably, they would fly right into our hands and happily land for a little while. They aren't picky or timid. It seems that their lives are pretty carefree.

So... what are they. Well, they go by a couple common names, some of which are "fairy flies", "angel flies", and for the less romantic, "fluff bugs." The real name for these girls is "Eriosomatinae." Broken apart and translated roughly, it means "Wool Body."  Leave it to latin for taking all of the fun out of things.  This is a Woolly Aphid. Bright blue and tiny, they are really aphids. They suck the juice out of plants and exude this syrupy liquid called "honey dew" (I wonder if "Honey Dew Donuts" realizes they are named after aphid excrement.) This liquid is like gold in the insect world. Ants guard farms of green aphids... (really, they milk them like cows) and drink the honey dew. Wasps flock to the stuff and can even become a hazard to humans because they gather in such numbers.

The Woolly Aphids are the only aphids to surreptitiously float around like in the picture. The others seem much more down to earth and serious about their eating and exuding. Woolly aphids have another gland that exudes a wax-like substance that makes up the little cloud of fluff that they wear like a skirt. It is thought that the wax might provide some sort of protection from predators (no one likes a mouthful of wax), or it might help them to float about as they do. A sub-type of the Woolly Aphid, the Apple Woolly Aphid, can present a problem to farmers as they gather in great numbers to suck the juice from apple trees. Together, their fluff looks like some sort of mold, a form of camouflage that may be another way the wax protects the aphids. Whatever the reasons, they are striking in their tiny appearance. Fragile and sweet, oddly feminine, they are a little magical and unassuming presence in the early Autumn.