Look Up! The Billion-Bug Highway You Can't See
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The Invisible Highway
When you look up on a nice day
what do you see?
Well, clouds and the occasional bird, of course sky,
lots of blue sky.
But what you can't see,
because from down on the ground they are totally invisible,
you are sitting under an enormous cloud of animals
who are right above you right now.
Starting with what we've all seen butterflies that flutter through the garden
land on a milkweed.
Sometimes butterflies can catch an up draft
and get carried by a breeze into the air
one thousand, two thousand, there thousand feet
even higher,
where they bit their wings to point to where they want to go.
And up with the butterflies you will find
ordinary flies, all kinds of small flies moving with the breeze
three thousand feet, four thousand feet, five thousand feet high,
and above them are little wasps, midgets
and most amazingly beetles, flying battles,
including this one that you know.
This is the ladybug.
Ladybugs in summer time can be found
at five thousand, six thousand feet up
there with them up even higher sometimes
a gypsy moth, male moth at ten thousand feet
flying off to search four females.
And higher still, this is mountain high,
twelve, thirteen, fourteen thousand feet up
there are spiders that put up little silk threads
that carry them like balloons