This morning, my mother noticed something strange under the Christmas tree. It appeared to be a collection of rather small spiders, upside-down, clumsily flailing their legs around on the ground as they tried to upright themselves.
Upon further inspection, I discovered that these insects, in the hundreds, were gathering around the trunk of our Christmas tree, waltzing up and down and overall having a great time. My family freaked out, and I realized that these were a particularly large species of aphid, feasting on their own Christmas dinner just like we had a few days before!
They clustered around the places where tree branch met tree, sucking the sap out of it and spraying it all over the lights we had so carefully hung on the tree. In the absence of ants with whom the aphids could have exchanged their honeydew for protection, they simply deposited their waste all over our decorations. My family and I hadn't noticed this for weeks, until today. We promptly moved the tree outside, washed our aphid-goop covered hands off, and cleaned the house.
All in all, I didn't think I would be seeing aphids around for another three months or so. I was wrong!
Fallen aphids, the first sign of their infestation:
A group of aphids around the branches:
The honeydew, sprayed onto our lights where they were closest to the trunk of the tree:
Edit: Further research on the aphid shows that it was probably a species of Giant Conifer Aphid, which is known to live on Christmas trees.
Edited by Stubyvast, Today, 2:35 PM.
