The search for the nine-spotted ladybug

Like any mystery, New York's missing nine-spotted ladybug was an enigma that puzzled the mind.

Named the official state insect in 1989 though no one had seen one in years, the nine-spotted was not only revered, it maintained its reputation as a miniature workhorse with wings.

On Long Island, it had worked almost as diligently on farms as farmers did. Armies of nine-spotted ladies gorged on aphids and dined heavily on mealybugs, clearing crops of damaging pests.

But 29 years ago the bright-red, polka-dot bugs vanished without a trace. From Montauk to Buffalo, there was nary a nine-spotted in sight.

By 2006, the year the New York State Assembly voted to oust the beleaguered bug from its elevated status in a bill that failed in the Senate, scientists were alarmed.

By early summer this year, scientists were barely hanging on to hope any bugs would ever be found.

That's around the time citizen scientist Peter Priolo, 26, of Moriches, decided to join the Lost Lady Bug Project, founded in 2000 at Cornell University in the Finger Lakes region.

For years, John Losey, project director and chairman of entomology, had been calling on citizen scientists statewide to join the hunt.

Over the years citizens have made major contributions to numerous scientific fields. In 1995 citizen astronomers Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp were credited with discovering one of the most spectacular comets of the 20th century, which was then named after them and made a near-Earth flyby in 1997.

Citizen scientists can be anyone of any age who creates a project, such as searching the night sky for distant stars, studying medicinal plants or conserving animals on the brink of extinction. Many citizen scientists join existing projects, like the search for lost ladybugs.

Citizen scientist

Priolo works with Suffolk County's Cooperative Extension Education Center in Riverhead, where he helps farmers manage crop nutrients. But as a seasoned citizen scientist in his spare time, he thought he could make a contribution by helping out on the ladybug project.

"With citizen-science gigs you're your own boss," Priolo said. "You don't have to have a PhD."

In addition to looking for missing ladybugs, Priolo has been hunting for rare Long Island orchids, a project he conceived himself.

He also has been active in Monarch Watch, a vast network of butterfly enthusiasts in this country and Canada who tag the orange-and-black creatures, which make a grueling 3,000-mile flight to roosts in Mexico. Tagging helps academic scientists map their remarkable journey.

Ladybugs, by contrast, have a short flight range. And Priolo seemed to know instinctively that if the elusive ladies were anywhere, it had to be on Long Island.

"I chose Quail Hill Farm, which is an organic community-supported farm, and decided that would be a good place to look," Priolo said.

The farm is in Amagansett and is part of the Peconic Land Trust, which is dedicated to maintaining the health of the land.

If the ladybug species was trying to beat back forces driving it into extinction, Priolo reasoned, it would have its best survival chances there.

"I had done natural resource tours in that area, and there's a lot of diversity of plants and insects," Priolo said. "The farm is relatively small-scale, but they grow a diverse number of vegetables and herbs."

Plant diversity, Priolo knew, might serve as a magnet, attracting beneficial insects in search of a protective environment.

Lady recovered

On a hot July day he asked other citizen scientists to join his search. And 51 people, from age 6 to his 81-year-old grandmother, heeded the call.

Armed with a butterfly net and a Mason jar, each staked out a portion of the farm. For hours they worked the planted rows as deftly as field hands, but by day's end: not a single ladybug.

"Around the time we were sort of calling it quits," Priolo said, "I decided to look in a row of sunflowers, and that's when I noticed it.

"It was on a leaf petiole," he said, referring to the slender stalk that attaches a leaf blade to a plant's stem. "I didn't realize at first that it was a nine-spotted."

He took the ladybug home and began to study it, using detailed entomological information.

"My friends were visiting from Connecticut, and I said, 'I think this is a nine-spotted.' And we all started jumping up and down."

Priolo emailed photos to Cornell, where scientists confirmed his find as the long-lost lady.

"This was a major discovery," said Losey, who formed a search party that included entomologists. They found 20 additional nine-spotted ladybugs on the farm. The bugs are being bred in his laboratory.

Losey has no plans to release them, because he has yet to determine what caused their decline or why no one had noticed them there before.

He theorizes that invasive seven-spotted Asian ladybugs forced the nine-spotted American bugs to vanish, and their disappearance has grown to include most of the Eastern Seaboard. The few on the farm were fighting extinction.

"Islands are often the last place a native will decline, especially if it's being replaced by an invasive species."

Losey would like to see more Long Island citizen scientists mount a wider search next spring. He senses many more nine-spotted ladybugs are out there. Eventually the aim will be to return them to the wild.

"They're pretty much hunkered down now for the winter," Losey said, adding there's ample time to plan next year's hunt.

Citizen science projects run the gamut, from astronomy to zoology. Here are a few:

Christmas Bird Count

Oldest in the United States, sponsored by the Audubon Society since 1900. Seeks citizen scientists to identify and count birds.

Contact: birds.audubon.org/get-involved-christmas-bird-count

Lost Lady Bug Project

Seeks citizens to find and photograph ladybugs. Sponsored by Cornell University. Interested in the nine-spotted and other rare ladybugs facing extinction.

Contact: lostladybug.org/participate.php

Monarch Watch

Citizen scientists needed to help conserve monarch butterflies. Numerous projects available. Sponsored by University of Kansas.

Contact: monarchwatch.org

Stardust@home

Citizen scientists needed to find interstellar dust particles from the Stardust spacecraft. Provides "virtual" online microscope. Sponsored by Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley.

Contact: stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu