| Tracking down the Striped Ladybird in Nottinghamshire | ||
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Sometimes a species becomes so sought after,
it can almost take you and your precious spare time, over. It eludes you
over the course of a year, eludes you again the next year, the year
after that, then another and so on. And in your eagerness to see it, it
becomes something of a fixation, one of those 'must see' species. If you're passionate about something, maybe a collector and you're missing that one last item to complete your collection, then you'll have an idea of just how (in this case) a beetle, can become something perhaps more than a fixation. For myself over the past seven years, one of numerous objects I had a desire to see, was Striped Ladybird Myzia oblongoguttata (Linnaeus, 1758). But I had already seen Striped Ladybird before, in fact on several occasions in the past. So why the urge to see it again? Well for me, there are always some species that catch the eye, or grab my attention and keep it ... keep it for years until I eventually see it. Striped Ladybird was just one of a list, some I've never seen and some, I wanted to see again. |
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| But the main reason Striped
Ladybird was on my list, was that I had some 'unfinished business with
it, business that went back to 2009. While Dilys and I had encountered the larva of this strikingly marked ladybird with several pupa and a number of freshly emerged adults on Budby South Forest in August 2009, we only managed to get photographs showing a pupating larva. We were after a series of photographs showing as many of the larval instars as possible, something we had achieved with most Nottinghamshire ladybirds easily recognised as being such. There was a hole on the website and it was a Striped Ladybird larva shaped hole. |
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Recent Nottinghamshire
records After the 2009 records, we did manage to see Striped Ladybird at Budby South Forest again in 2010, but then that was it and year after year, broken only by the chance find of another on Pines growing alongside the former Thoresby Colliery in 2018, Striped Ladybird gradually headed towards the top of the 'most wanted' list, and even more so after I started the 'Ramblings of an entomologist' YouTube channel back in 2021, on which I'd always wanted to feature this species. We had first seen it at Sherwood Pines (still called Clipstone Forest then) back on 22/03/06, then found our second on a Scot's Pine blown over by strong winds at Clipstone Old Quarter on 30/01/07. Then came the three records of a larva, several pupae and adults from Budby South Forest on 03/08/09, 09/08/09 and 22/09/09 (all from the same tree), with another at Budby South Forest on 17/01/10. The only other record was mentioned in the previous paragraph, from alongside Thoresby Colliery in 2018. When we were researching Nottinghamshire's old records of this very attractive ladybird back in 2007, Dilys and I were surprised at the lack of any previously records. In fact, there weren't any published records at all on the NBN Atlas and seemingly our 2006 record was the first for Nottinghamshire. If anyone else had (or has) seen Striped Ladybird in Nottinghamshire, then they're just not saying. The trouble is, this is a characteristic tree-dwelling species, so often well out of reach of the entomologist. It is commonest on mature Scots Pine, but can apparently turn up on Birch and overwintering is said to occur in the needle/leaf litter at the base of trees. That being said, our two January records, would suggest that this is not wholly the case and that adults will probably also overwinter deep in bark crevices, perhaps under loose bark, but certainly at the end of the previous years growth, maybe tucked in alongside other species such as the 7-spot Ladybird Coccinella septempuctata. It is a large species (up to 7mm) and slightly larger than the Cream-streaked Ladybird Harmonia quadripunctata. The two species inhabit the same Pine forest and heathland habitats and both occur on Scot's Pine. But even with the invaluable help of Nick and Samantha Brownley, the three of us could not find a Striped Ladybird between us, despite much effort and the beating of many Pines of all shapes and sizes at a range of sites for these past two or three years. But then...... |
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Finally! After a fruitless few years of searching and at different times of the year, we were at least now more than aware at just how uncommon Striped Ladybird appears to be in Nottinghamshire. It is a very difficult ladybird to find and there remains few county records. As it turned out, it seems that Dilys and myself were the only people to have recorded it at all in Nottinghamshire, but then out of nowhere, Nick and Samantha Brownley beat two Striped Ladybirds from Pines growing on Rainworth Heath NR in mid-April 2025. So after several years looking, there are now eight Nottinghamshire records which we know of, as of April 19th 2025. I must admit to being personally surprised at how difficult this beetle has been to locate. It really is a great find and a very attractive species too. And despite the two specimens Nick and Samantha found being male and female, the hoped for eggs never appeared and so my wait for photographs of the different larval instars goes on. |
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| But that Striped Ladybird
was found on the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust's Rainworth Heath NR,
was a good thing. It adds another grid square to the distribution map
(lower 1km grid square) and shows how this ladybird is confined to the
commercial Pine forests and heathland areas of Nottinghamshire's sandy
soils. Even with hindsight, it still seems to have been a much rarer species to find (or re-find) than I had thought it would be. I still feel however, that we have found just the tip of the iceberg regarding the Striped Ladybird in Nottinghamshire. With acre upon acre of Pine plantations in the Sherwood Forest area here, it must be more common than our few records presently indicate it is. |
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