Humbug

"The Humbug is the incarnation of the misunderstood Ethereal element of Poison. When it buzzes its wings fast enough, it can open up and glide on supersonic dimensional highways from universe to universe. Humbugs naturally enjoy warm weather, and are drawn to humid places where the hum produced by their wings has the finest tone."

Description
The Humbug joined the song on February 19th 2014. Its body resembles that of a bee, wasp, or hornet, with charcoal-gray and light greenish-yellow furry stripes. It has a beaked face.

When this monster is idle, it stays in tempo by bending its knees like the Quarrister, except for the steadier motion and a slight twitch of its wings.

Song
Audio sample:

The Humbug's song is a legato synthesizer sound, providing a smooth melody to an island's song.

Breeding
The Humbug can be bred using a combination of one four-element monster and one three-element monster. Possible combination(s):


 * Quarrister.png + Clamble.png Quarrister and Clamble
 * Quarrister.png + Thumpies.png Quarrister and Thumpies
 * Quarrister.png + Pompom.png Quarrister and PomPom
 * Quarrister.png + Reedling.png Quarrister and Reedling

There is roughly a 1% chance of breeding this successfully. According to statistics, doing 70 attempts gives you a 50% chance of successfully breeding at least one Humbug; and doing 690 attempts gives you a 99.9% chance of successfully breeding at least one Humbug. Note that a Rare Monster can substitute any parent. The only exceptions are "Ethereal Breeding Bonanzas. These increase the chance of breeding an Ethereal by 500%. If you know your Maths, this means 5x more chance.

Earning Rate and Maximum Income
Earning rate is in coins or shards per hour and depends on Happiness % (Likes increase Happiness), also each monster has a limit to how much income it can hold at a time. Increasing the monster's level increases the limit.

Feeding Monsters
Each monster needs to be fed four times before it reaches the next level. Increasing the monster's level increases the coins earned per minute. The food per level is the same for all Ethereal monsters of the same element count and can be found in this article.

Note: with the Ethereal Island update, Humbug can be fed up to level 15, at which time it can be placed on Ethereal Island, instead of Gold Island.

Likes
Every monster has different things and friends that they like. For every unique object that they like that's placed near the monster, the monster's happiness will increase by 25% (in other words, placing two of the same liked item near a monster will still only increase happiness by 25%).
 * Thumpies
 * Kazilleon
 * Floofy Nest
 * Flappy Flag
 * Piney Tree

See the Likes page to view a complete list of all monsters' likes.

Strategy
Some items to take into consideration when designing your island by strategy are number of beds for the monster, rate of income per bed, max income per bed, and time for max income to be reached.

Name Origin
"Humbug" is an English-language term, originally (mid-1700s) referring to a trickster or fraud, later used more generally as a term of derision or scorn (e.g. "Bah!  Humbug!"). More recently the word has been used to describe bugs that actually hum, and Norman Juster's novel The Phantom Tollbooth has an insect character named "Humbug".