More than 120 years after the last national catalogue, Swiss entomologists have compiled a complete, annotated checklist of the ladybird beetles (Coccinellidae) of Switzerland, and the tally stands at 81 species, or 82 taxa when subspecies are included. The inventory, published in the journal Alpine Entomology, rests on 33,976 individual occurrence records drawn from museum and private collections, published literature and field data gathered by naturalists.
The authors examined relevant material in the major Swiss museum collections, from the Natural History Museum of Geneva to the Naturhistorisches Museum Basel and more than a dozen cantonal institutions, and supplemented this with specimens held in three foreign museums in Great Britain, Austria and Germany, as well as the private collections of the authors and six other collectors. The result is the first comprehensive overview of the family since Stierlin’s catalogue of 1900, a gap the authors describe as remarkable for such a charismatic group of beetles.
The seven new national records illustrate how much can be hidden in old drawers. Exochomus oblongus is known from a single Swiss specimen collected in the canton of Grisons at 1,800 metres in 1972, close to the Tyrol where the species also occurs; it has not been seen in Switzerland for 50 years. Hyperaspis peezi appears to be restricted to the canton of Valais, where all specimens were collected in sunny, hot, dry areas dominated by pines and oaks. Hyperaspis pseudopustulata is supported by one male captured in 1992 in a peat bog in Ticino, with a second specimen from Geneva awaiting confirmation because a confusion with the similar H. reppensis cannot be ruled out without genital examination.
The remaining new records are equally instructive. Nephus bisignatus was documented from specimens collected between 1935 and 2019, found in Switzerland between 600 and 1,800 metres above sea level, notably far from the coastal habitats the species prefers elsewhere in Europe. Scymniscus anomus is known from two males caught in a wetland in Ticino, one in a pitfall trap, and Scymnus doriae from a handful of specimens at three localities, identifiable only by male genitalia. Rhyzobius forestieri, an Australian species imported into Europe in the 1980s to control olive scale, was found in 2022 at two Ticino localities tens of kilometres apart in good natural environments; because the species was apparently never introduced in Switzerland, the authors suspect natural colonisation from Italy.
Chilocorus similis, cited repeatedly in nineteenth-century publications, lacks any supporting specimens in the examined collections and is otherwise known in the Palearctic only from Italy. Coccinella undecimpunctata undecimpunctata rests entirely on specimens from problematic collections and old records not based on dissected males, and its salt-marsh ecology fits poorly with landlocked Switzerland. The phytophagous Chnootriba elaterii is documented only from the problematic Maerky collection, and Henosepilachna vigintioctopunctata, an Asian species absent from Central Europe, appears in old Swiss publications but no corresponding specimen was found anywhere.
Several of the excluded species are biological control agents that never established permanent populations. Cryptolaemus montrouzieri, an Australian predator of mealybugs, turned up as 11 specimens released by a commercial supplier in Lucerne in 1993 and is considered too cold-sensitive to overwinter outdoors in Central Europe. Novius cardinalis, introduced worldwide against the citrus pest Icerya purchasi, was found repeatedly in Ticino between 1946 and 1993, apparently the result of multiple introductions, but because it was almost never recorded in consecutive years the authors assume it cannot overwinter in Switzerland. By contrast, Rhyzobius lophanthae, another exotic coccid-feeder, is now considered established and apparently expanding, with records spanning Ticino, Geneva, Fribourg, Vaud and Valais from 1983 to 2022.
The checklist also documents an invasion with visible ecological consequences. The Asian ladybird Harmonia axyridis, introduced to Europe as a biological control agent and now cosmopolitan, arrived in northwestern Switzerland in 2004. Long-term monitoring there showed that within a few years it became the dominant ladybird on broadleaved trees and shrubs, while the native two-spot ladybird Adalia bipunctata, previously a dominant species, declined sharply and has almost disappeared from the region. National-scale data suggest the same pattern across the country, with A. bipunctata no longer found in many localities where it was once very common, mirroring developments reported in Germany. The authors judge that the four introduced Coccinellidae now established or recurring in Switzerland, including the two Rhyzobius species, are unlikely to disrupt natural ecosystems given their small size and exclusively coccid-feeding diets, in contrast to the large, polyphagous H. axyridis.
Conservation concerns run through the discussion. Switzerland has no red list for Coccinellidae, but several species appear to be in strong decline or possibly already extinct, particularly wetland specialists such as Parexochomus nigromaculatus and Calvia quindecimguttata, neither of which has been recorded in the country for more than 40 years. The authors note that, as with other insect groups tied to wetlands, ladybirds are probably threatened in Switzerland as well. At the other extreme, the Alps harbour rare, highly specialised species and subspecies found regularly above 2,000 metres, including Ceratomegilla rufocincta doderoi, C. alpina alpina, C. alpina redtenbacheri, Coccinella trifasciata trifasciata and C. venusta adalioides. Species that are very rare in Europe as a whole, such as Exochomus oblongus and Hyperaspis peezi, give Switzerland a particular responsibility for their conservation.
The authors expect further discoveries. Several species went unnoticed in Switzerland until this publication even though specimens had sat in museum collections for decades, because the discreet Scymnini ladybirds are difficult to find and almost always require genital dissection for reliable identification. Systematic dissection of collection material, they argue, will likely add new species to the national list, as will targeted sampling. They also anticipate that cosmopolitan species introduced for biological control, or southern European species expanding northward in a warming climate, may yet appear. Updated distribution maps for all 81 species are available on the info fauna cartographic server, and all valid records have been published through GBIF, making this first modern accounting of Switzerland’s ladybirds a baseline for future monitoring of a family in which roughly 80 percent of the Central European fauna is represented.
Subject of Research: An updated annotated checklist of the ladybird beetle family Coccinellidae in Switzerland, based on museum collections, literature and field records.
Article Title: Annotated checklist of the Coccinellidae ( Coleoptera , Coccinelloidea ) of Switzerland
Article References: Sanchez, A., & Chittaro, Y. (2022). Annotated checklist of the Coccinellidae (Coleoptera, Coccinelloidea) of Switzerland. Alpine Entomology, 6, 111-127. https://doi.org/10.3897/alpento.6.89476
Image Credits: AI Generated
Keywords: Coccinellidae, ladybirds, Switzerland, checklist, entomology, biodiversity, Harmonia axyridis, biological control, Alpine Entomology, species inventory, museum collections, invasive species
News Source: Margaret Porter. (October 27, 2026). Switzerland’s Ladybirds Counted at Last: 81 Species, Seven Brand-New to the Country. Scienmag.
