More bug projects « Grassroots Science

Just heard this project. I wish I heard it last week when I saw a ladybug, maybe in Bethel or it could have been in Anchorage. The bug was somewhat oblong, as I recall, and dark brownish-red, maybe with some black spots. The ladybug/ladybird did not have the color and shape of the (once) familiar red ones back east. I didn’t think to get a picture.

But I found this about Alaska’s ladybugs, including an anatomy diagram. The color is more like what I recall (not the bright red of the eastern ladybugs).
The species ladybug eyespot (fig. 1) eats aphids in Alaska that do significant damage to flowers and vegetables. http://www.alaska.edu/opa/eInfo/index.xml?StoryID=118

2008-07-21 Steve took a picture, here at whatdoino, Bugs, Boleta, Barbecue, and a Tacky Green Russula

Students, bug your teachers, please
Science project — insects

Lost Ladybug Project Turns Kids Into Scientists

All Things Considered, July 5, 2008
Calling all kids! Cornell University wants you to find and photograph ladybugs. John Losey, a professor of entomology at Cornell University, hopes children will help document ladybug populations around the
country. Some native species are dwindling, while exotics are on the rise. To participate in the project, go to the Lost Ladybug Project Web site or send an e-mail to ladybug @ cornell . edu

Site Search Tags: bugs, insects, ladybugs, Cornell.edu, science+project, whatdoino-steve

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4 Responses to “More bug projects”

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1 Steve 2008 July 8 at 6:48 pm

Good to see you actively posting again. Was that here you saw the ladybug? I remember someone finding one in our backyard recently. Maybe that was you. I didn’t think much about it because we have them all the time.

2 mpb 2008 July 8 at 7:14 pm

Thanks, Steve, nothing like a change of venue (and meeting new friends
http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2008/06/pam-of-grassroots-science-visits.html) to shake out cobwebs. Of course, I’m behind on writing up what I learned while in the big city.

It may well have been your ladybugs I saw. I have seen a very few in the past in Bethel but they aren’t common that I have noticed. Until this NPR story, I had no idea that the 9-spot was disappearing.

Has anyone else noticed ladybugs, or their recent absence, on the tundra?

3 mpb 2008 October 7 at 11:15 am

from Science in the News

Scientists Delve into Ladybug Mystery

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

ITHACA, N.Y. (Associated Press)—The nine-spotted ladybug was considered so common, charismatic and crop-friendly that it was adopted in 1989 as New York’s official state insect.

As it turns out, the species may have disappeared from the state nearly two decades before that. Recent surveys in New York and the Northeast have found none of the once-ubiquitous beetles entomologists call Coccinella novemnotata—or C-9, for short.

The decline of C-9 and other native ladybugs happened so quickly and precipitously that scientists have launched a nationwide project to try to understand why some species have all but vanished while others have greatly increased their numbers and range.

http://snipurl.com/43b5q

1 Alaska bluets not dragons or flowers but damsels « Grassroots Science Trackback on 2008 July 20 at 6:21 pm

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