NORWICH — Julia Pupko walked through a field at the Norwich Nature Center swinging a net in a figure-eight motion.
After about 30 feet, she paused to examine what the net picked up.
Dozens of bugs spilled out, many climbing onto Pupko.
She carefully picked through them, pushing aside spiders, crickets and others, before stopping when she found what she had been searching for: a lady beetle.
The one she caught in her net was a parenthesis lady beetle — identified by the thick black marks on its back that resemble the punctuation marks — one of Vermont’s most common native lady beetle species.
(A “lady beetle” is the same as a “ladybug,” but the scientific community uses “beetle” as it is more specific, said Pupko, an Environmental Careers and Opportunities (ECO) AmeriCorps member.)
Pupko, who is serving as a community science outreach naturalist at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, is leading a project collecting data on lady beetles for the nonprofit organization’s Vermont Atlas of Life. A few years ago, the VCE came across a report from 1976 about the 35 different native lady beetle species throughout the state and in 2020 launched a program to see which are still in Vermont.
This year is year two of a five-year project to track the species and find out which ones from the 1970s are no longer here. So far, 12 that were in Vermont in the 1970s have yet to be found.
“The native ones have been declining,” Pupko said Monday while sweeping the field at the Norwich Nature Center.
The decline in Vermont follows a national trend.
“In Vermont, some of the species that are missing now such as (the) nine-spotted have been listed as critically endangered.”
There are two main reasons for this: changes in land use, which encroach on the beetles’ habitat and food supply, and the introduction of non-native lady beetle species such as the Asian lady beetle which are one of seven non-native species in Vermont.
“These non-native species are pretty bad news,” Pupko said. “I personally think the non-native species have been doing the native species dirty.”
Lady beetles feast on soft-body insects such as aphids, mealybugs and scale insects. By eating those pests, lady beetles help farmers take care of their crops. Others, like the twice-stabbed lady beetle, can be found on beech trees, where they have had some success eating the scale component of beech bark disease, and have also proven helpful to hemlock trees by eating “elongate hemlock scale,” which damages the trees. The spotted lady beetle counts pollen among its food sources. Lady beetles have also altered their life cycles to better align with their food sources, meaning they are out when the pests they feast on are active.
“It’s so cool how evolution works and how they’re just doing their thing and do a good job of controlling soft-body insects so our ecosystems remain in balance,” Pupko said.
Lady beetles are most active mid-May through October. The best weather to find them is when it is warm, overcast and sunny, with little wind.
Part of the project relies on members of the public searching for lady beetles, photographing them and uploading them to the Vermont Lady Beetle Atlas on the iNaturalist app. While all of Vermont needs to be surveyed, there are a handful of high-priority areas including some in the Upper Valley in Thetford, Norwich, Quechee, Woodstock, Randolph Center, Chelsea and Springfield, Vt.
A map of the blocks can be found at val.vtecostudies.org/projects/lady-beetle-atlas/survey-map, and that’s also where people can sign up to “adopt” a block.
“We encourage having a couple people who can take turns surveying,” each high priority area, Pupko said.
While people can search by hand, Pupko recommends investing in a net. Open fields with tall grasses and shrubs are a good place to start. Also, be on the lookout for aphids: If you see them, there’s a good chance lady beetles are nearby. Lady beetles do not bite and are not poisonous.
“The kind of juicier guys like the clovers are usually pretty good,” Pupko said. “Being able to sweep definitely helps with finding them.”
Popular culture shows lady beetles as being bright red or orange, with black spots. Not all have spots and not all are bright. There’s also a lot of variety within a species.
The parenthesis lady beetle, for example, doesn’t always have those two distinct marks on its back.
“They can be very difficult to tell apart,” Pupko said. “There’s a bunch of lady beetles that are tiny and black in color.”
During an hour or so at the Norwich Nature Center, which is off Route 5 near the Interstate 91 interchange, Pupko also came across a spotted lady beetle — one of Vermont’s strongest and most common — and two lady beetle larvae.
To create a good habitat for lady beetles, make sure there is a variety of trees and shrubs on your property. If you have woods, let dead trees rot and leaf litter — where lady beetles overwinter — accumulate.
“They’re helpful little bugs,” Pupko said. “I’ve become quite fond of them.”
Editor’s note: For more information about the Vermont Lady Beetle Atlas, visit val.vtecostudies.org/projects/lady-beetle-atlas.
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
Update
This story has been updated to indicate the twice-stabbed lady beetle’s role in combating beech bark disease.
