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They\'re not ladies and they\'re not birds; they\'re not even technically bugs! But that\'s not the most surprising thing about ladybirds/ladybugs and their brilliant variety of names. Tamsin Majerus AKA Dr Ladybird explains why ladybirds are so great; and Johanna Mayer and Elah Feder of the podcast Science Diction, about words and the science stories behind them, consider what\'s in a (ladybird) name.

This episode is one half of a collaboration with Science Diction, so go to their feed to listen to their episode It\\u2019ll Never Fly, where they set me a quiz about the outlandish and intriguing names given to fruitfly genes.

There\'s more about this episode, and a transcript, at theallusionist.org/ladybird.

The music is by Martin Austwick. Hear Martin\\u2019s own songs at palebirdmusic.com or search for Pale Bird on Bandcamp and Spotify, and he\\u2019s @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram.\\xa0

Sign up to be a patron at patreon.com/allusionist and as well as supporting the show, you get discounted tickets to the upcoming Allusionist live show on 4 September 2021, plus the story of my all too brief spell of having a loveliness of pet ladybirds.

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