Lost Ladybug Project – National Geographic Kids Blogs

National Geographic Society

Have you seen ladybugs near where you live? Did you know that the ladybugs you see may not be from a native ladybug species? Over the years, native ladybugs have become rare, while species of ladybugs that come from other places have become more common. The Lost Ladybug Project is looking for native ladybugs (and counting invasive ladybugs, too) to find out why the native species are becoming so rare.

You can help by finding and photographing ladybugs! Visit the Lost Ladybug Project website with your parents to learn how to find ladybugs and send in your pictures.

Get the facts on ladybugs in the Creature Feature.

Photograph by Paul Garcia, My Shot

Comments

Chica88
September 21, 2010, 7:04 pm

This is a GORGEOUS pic. luv it
barnowl24601
January 25, 2012, 4:20 am

so?
at least we have lady bugs at all!
they do the same thing and besides there are thousands apon thousands of speices does it really matter?

barnowl24601
Lost Ladybug Project
March 31, 2012, 12:47 am

Great question barnowl24601 !
Yes, there are over 500 species of ladybugs in North America but they do different things in different ways. We need lots of different kinds of ladybugs because each ladybug species has a different job to do in nature, each fits into an environment’s food web in a different way. Some ladybugs actually just eat fungi, some eat scale insects while others eat aphids, some like to eat pollen too. Different ladybug species help to control different crop pests! They may also have the ability to live in a different place or have a different life cycle timing.

So it matters if some native species decline because those species specialize on eating certain kinds of aphids and other pests, they lived in certain areas, and have particular life cycles. There is overlap, often you see more than one kind of ladybug in a crop field and this is good. Other scientists have shown that we get better pest control with a variety of ladybugs than with just one species in the field.
We are using the project to study both common and rare ladybugs.
Thanks for asking and send us a picture if you see a ladybug!

You must be logged in to post a comment.