Ladybugs

At first glance, would you decide this garden visitor was a welcome guest or a must-be-banned interloper?

If you answered that this ladybug is a welcome garden guest, you're correct. Ladybugs are beneficial insects and are a huge help for keeping down aphid populations in your garden. Aphids? Those are some of the bad guys — they can destroy crops in a matter of days if they're not dealt with.

While the majority of insects that visit your garden are actually benign or even helpful, there are some nasty pests that you definitely don't want to host a garden party for.

When I'm unsure about an insect's merits, I head to Gardener's Supply's Pest and Disease Identification page. This helpful, easy-to-navigate, and eco-oriented garden pest locator helps you to identify plant diseases and garden pests, including the creepy crawlers on your potato plants, by image. I've used it to identify leafhoppers and learn how to deal with these tiny pests, and I'm sure I'll use it again soon. You can check it out here.

Vice recently did a shoot where they covered models in nearly 500,000 ladybugs. The little polka-dotted beetles were all over the girls' hair and skin, often gettin' frisky because they'd been in hibernation before they were used in the shoot. The experience seems like it may have left everyone involved a little grossed out, but the resultant images are something to behold. To see more of the shoot, just click through the gallery below:

Photos courtesy Vice Magazine