Lucy Carter

Have you voted in the spider poll yet?  We want to find out what you think about spiders, and more specifically, what you would do if you found one in your house!   Vote now on the Bugs Count home page - over 3000 people have voted already.  Putting it outside seems like a popular option...

We'll soon be changing the poll to a new question, so keep checking back and casting your votes.

What would you like to know about bugs?  If you have ideas for the next poll question, add your suggestions as comments at the bottom of this blog post!

If you've been following the Bugs Count since the launch last week, you'll know that we're asking everyone to keep an eye out for the Two-spot Ladybird - it's one of our Species Quests.  There is evidence to suggest that Two-spot numbers are declining as a result of the arrival of the non-native Harlequin Ladybird.  Bugs Count wants to discover more about where they are still found, and how many are out there.  In order to do this we've been working with the Ladybird Recording Scheme, who are the experts on all things ladybird.

But how do we know the Two-spot Ladybird has suffered a decline, and how does sending in a sighting wih a photo help?  Well yesterday a new Ladybird Atlas was published - a book which includes lots of information about all our different ladybirds (there are 47 species living in the UK) with maps showing where in the country they have been seen and reported.  This is the first time an atlas for ladybirds has been made, and it shows sightings gathered over the past 200 years - the oldest sighting is from 1819!  Collecting sightings over such a long time period allows us to see how their distributions have changed - which ones are spreading and which ones are no longer found in certain areas.

So here's to the next 200 years of ladybird recording, and hopefully Bugs Count will help to get it off to a flying start! (All ladybird sightings you send in to us will be passed on to the Ladybird Recording Scheme).

If you'd liek to learn more about ladybirds, you can buy a copy of the atlas from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology's website, or visit them at the BBC Gardener's World Live show this week! 

p.s. the Bugs Count totaliser is now at 99,700 bugs - who will find the 100,000th bug?!!!

On the same day that OPAL Bugs Count launched, my friend Chloe was also busy with launch activities, publicising her research into the changing landscape of London.  She was particularly looking into London's gardens, and how they have changed in the past ten years or so.  There were lots of interesting findings, and it has a strong link with Bugs Count as we are discovering the bugs that live in our gardens and parks. 

So what were the findings?

On the positive side, almost a quarter of London is made up of private gardens - and that's fairly representative of cities across the country.  Great news!  That's loads of potential living space for invertebrates and other wildlife.  These gardens are home to 2.5 million trees too - so if you have a tree in your garden, why not take part in the Museum's Urban Tree Survey?

On the down side, over a period of around 8 years, these gardens had lost 12% of their vegetation (plant) cover, lost 16% of their lawn and had gained 26% more hard surfacing.  Not such good news, especially when we think about climate change and flooding.  Plants are great for keeping areas cool - hard surfaces store more solar energy than plants, which is then released at night creating an effect called the urban heat island.  Planted areas are also much better at soaking up rain water than hard surfaces are, helping to prevent flooding. 

It's also likely that this loss of planted area and gain of hard surfaces will have had an impact on the wildlife found there.  It will be interesting to see the results of Bugs Count, where we are comparing the abundance and diversity of invertebrates found on hard surfaces compared to plants and natural/soft ground surfaces.

The research was done by the London Wildlife Trust, Greenspace Information for Greater London and the Greater London Authority.  You can download the report from the LWT and GiGL websites.

Bugs Count

Talking of Bugs Count we spent last Saturday in the Museum's Wildlife Garden doing some bug hunting and telling Museum visitors about the survey.  It was a really fun day and we had lots of interest.  Here's a photo of John and our volunteer Rachel at the Bugs Count stand.

What they're looking so closely at is a european relative of the Rose Chafer. Rose Chafers and their european relatives were amongst a number of 'show bugs' we had with us, to demonstrate some of the very cool bugs you might find whilst doing the Bugs Count. 

Here's a close up of the Rose Chafer's relative... John's holding the adult as well as it's larvae (the white grubs) and it's pupa (the brown ball).

We also had Leopard Slugs, a Devil's Coach Horse and some ladybirds.  We almost lost a Leopard Slug when John did his Nature Live talk - the slug was on the 'visualiser' - a piece of kit that projects an image of the slug onto a big screen.  As John was chatting away, the slug made it's escape and no-one shouted out to let him know!!  Luckily he found it taking shelter underneath the visualiser at the end of the show.  Phew!

Had a fabulous time yesterday - finished the day off with an evening drinks reception to celebrate the launch of Bugs Count.  Very excited to see all the TV coverage, and we found out today that BBC Springwatch are interested.  Hopefully their presenters will have given the survey a go during their lunch hour today and should be talking about it on the programme tonight!!

So look out for Bugs Count on Springwatch tonight - BBC2 at 8pm!

The natural history groups we worked with to develop the survey are already excited about the results.  Tree Bumblebees in Scotland are of particular interest so we'll be following those up very soon.

Keep the records coming in.  We'll be running the survey in the Natural History Museum Wildlife Garden this saturday as part of Open Garden Squares Weekend so why not come and join us?  You can meet me and my colleague John who has also been developing the survey at our Nature Live talks -called  Big City Bug Hunt - at 12:30 and 14:30.

Hope to see you there!