Tag Archives: British beetles

Thistle tortoise beetle

20 Tuesday May 2025

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Back in 2022, I blogged about this beetle’s bizarre larvae, the ones that carry their own poo above their backs as camouflage (see Thistle tortoise beetle larvae, July 2022). It’s taken me almost three years to spot an adult Thistle tortoise beetle (Cassida rubiginosa) but, now that I see how well they blend in to their thistle surroundings (no poo required), I understand why.

I also understand now why they’re called tortoise beetles, as their ‘shell’ really is tortoise-like. And, even better, if you look closely at the rear end of the beetle in the photo below right, you may be able to spot some tiny cream-coloured tubes – this beautiful beetle was a female and she was egg-laying.

A Wasp beetle

03 Saturday May 2025

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Some of the creatures I encounter when leaf fossicking are off in the blink of an eye and I get no more than a tantalising glimpse of something intriguingly colourful disappearing into the undergrowth. For a horrible moment this morning, I thought that was going to be the case when I spotted the stripey underbelly of this Wasp beetle (Clytus arietis) heading behind a leaf.

Luckily for me, it re-emerged on the other side, then proved remarkably tolerant of me and my camera as I took lots of photos. I’ve only seen this wasp-mimicking beetle once before and that was back in 2016, so I was particularly pleased it proved co-operative for me today.

My first Pine ladybird

10 Monday Mar 2025

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I don’t know why this has taken me so long but yesterday, by sheer chance, I finally found my first Pine ladybird (Exochomus quadripustulatus), which also happened to be the 1600th species I’ve recorded with my local biodiversity records centre since I first started recording back in February 2016.

At first, I wasn’t entirely sure it was a Pine ladybird but a ladybird sitting on a Pine tree had to be a strong contender so I took some photos and, when I checked later at home, I was able to confirm that the red splodges that look a bit like commas on the front of its black wing-casings (elytra) are diagnostic.

The Pine ladybird is listed as common throughout much of England and Wales, though, in fact, there are only nine records of this little ladybird, dating from 2007-2022, in my local 10km grid square, and that is my excuse for not having found it before now! You can see a map of its distribution on the UK Beetle Recording website here.

Lesser thorn-tipped longhorn beetle

04 Saturday Jan 2025

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On 9 December, once again on the local park railings (I check them regularly now as I keep finding interesting creatures on them), I found my first ever Lesser thorn-tipped longhorn beetle (Pogonocherus hispidus). It’s thought to resemble a bird-dropping for camouflage, and named ‘thorn-tipped’ because of the thorn-like projections at the tips of its elytra (wing cases). I wondered, on social media, about its presence on the railings, and one of my followers provided the likely reason: ‘I think they get blown out of trees in windy weather. We get them on gravestones under trees in our local cemetery after high winds.’ The specimen I found has its ‘long horns’ tucked in at its sides so I recommend you take a look at the much clearer photos of this odd-looking beetle and read more about it in one of Steven Falk’s Flickr albums here.

250104 Lesser Thorn-tipped Longhorn Beetle

Alder leaf beetles

18 Thursday Jul 2024

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Much to my surprise, my record of Alder Leaf Beetle (Agelastica alni) was the SEWBReC (South East Wales Biodiversity Records Centre) record of the week for week ending 12 July. I had thought these beetles were common so was a little surprised to read in SEWBReC’s social media post that ‘It is expanding its range, so any records help track its spread.’ So, I took a look at the NBN Atlas map, which shows there are few records so far in south Wales, and I also checked the UK Beetles website, which notes

It was formerly considered extinct in the UK; it was recorded a few times from widely scattered localities across England during the mid-20th century but following its rediscovery in 2004 in northwest England it has spread rapidly and it is now locally common and often abundant across the south of England and the midlands and it seems to be increasing in range and abundance.

240718 alder leaf beetles (1)

As well as several of the shiny blue adult beetles, my leaf-bothering had turned up lots of larvae. The UK Beetles website also gives interesting details about these tiny creatures:

females oviposit during May and June …attach groups of eggs to the underside of host foliage, usually between 50 and 70 eggs in each batch and each will lay between 200 and 250 … Larvae emerge 10-12 days later, they pass through 3 instars and are fully grown within 25-30 days; they feed communally but in the last instar disperse throughout the host plant, they are very distinctive and easily recognized; elongate and pale grey when small and shiny black as final instars.

240718 alder leaf beetles (2)

Two longhorns

16 Tuesday Jul 2024

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I’m sure many of you will have seen this first longhorn beetle, the Spotted longhorn (Rutpela maculata). Though the patterns may vary, its colourful yellow-and-black colouring is quite distinctive, and it is our most common longhorn beetle, though it doesn’t frequent the more northerly parts of Britain. Look for it along the edges of woodland rides and in hedgerows, particularly on the flowers of Hawthorn and various species of umbellifer, throughout the summer months.

240716 rutpela maculata

My second longhorn was a new discovery for me, once again from my recent visit to Slade Wood: this is Stenocorus meridianus (no common name). The fragmented broadleaf woodland of Slade Wood – where a lot of non-native trees have been felled in recent years to make way for native species – is the ideal habitat for this beetle, as it likes to feed on the flowers growing in sunny locations along woodland rides and on the edges of clearings. It is a large beetle, between 15 and 25mm, quite triangular in shape with its broad shoulders tapering to a more narrow apex. Its head and thorax are black (though that’s not so obvious when it’s covered in white pollen like this beastie), and the colour of its electra (wing covers) can vary from pale brown to black.

240716 Stenocorus meridianus

Metallic green beetles

03 Wednesday Jul 2024

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There are other species of similar metallic green beetles in Britain, but the UK Beetles website says only one (Cryptocephalus hypochaeridis) is likely to cause confusion, so I think I’ve got my identification right here. Meet Cryptocephalus aureoles, a beetle that is reasonably common in much of southern Britain, particularly in sunny, open, dry environments, like woodland and countryside footpath edges, roadsides, embankments and, in my case, the south-facing slope of a coal spoil tip.

240703 Cryptocephalus aureolus (1)

Though the adults can be seen from April through to September, they are particularly active in June and July, when they are often to be found feeding on various species of plants with yellow flowers – hawkweeds (Hieraceum sp.) and cat’s-ears (Hypochaeris sp.) are particular favourites.

240703 Cryptocephalus aureolus (2)

Somewhat surprisingly, their exact life cycle has not been confirmed. The UK Beetles website explains that, after mating,

oviposition occurs from late spring; each egg being coated with faecal matter and secretions and dropped to the ground by the female. Larvae emerge after three or four weeks, depending on the temperature, and develop through the summer, it is not known which stage overwinters but young larvae have been recorded late in the summer and so it is likely to be as larvae which complete their development and pupate in the spring

Fleabane tortoise beetle larvae

08 Saturday Jun 2024

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If you’ve been here a while (for which, sincere thanks!), you might remember the bizarre larvae of the Thistle tortoise beetle that employ a faecal shield as a protective device, carrying their own excretions above their backs as a disguise (Thistle tortoise beetle larvae, 7 July 2022). Well, earlier this week, while checking the leaves of Common fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica) for leafminers, I found another example of this behaviour.

240608 fleabane tortoise beetle larva (2)

These are Fleabane tortoise beetle larvae (Cassida murraea), which, like all other members of the tortoise beetle family, the Cassidinae, use a combination of their own frass and moulted skin, secretions and plant material to create the cryptic disguises they carry around behind and above their vulnerable bodies.

240608 fleabane tortoise beetle larva (1)

This particular species has not been recorded locally before and I’ve never seen the adult beetles so I’ll be poking about in the fleabane in the coming weeks to see if I can find any.

A surprising beetle find

09 Thursday May 2024

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I am often amazed at how creatures manage to move long distances, especially small creatures like this Green tiger beetle (Cicindela campestris) I found at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park yesterday. At just 15mm long, this little beetle can run much faster than you might think, and it can also fly quite well for short distances, but it has never been recorded at Cosmeston before, and a check of the Welsh biodiversity database shows the nearest records were over 10 kilometres away and not recent. So, did it hitch a ride in someone’s car, catch a train and fly from the station, hop on a bus? And, if there’s one, are there more? I will be looking.

240509 green tiger beetle

Beetles on dead Ash

01 Wednesday May 2024

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When I first spotted my mystery beetle, I thought perhaps it, and others of its kind, had been responsible for making the burrowing marks under the bark of the many dead Ash trees I saw around me.

240501 ash bark beetle (1)

But no. Those marks were likely made by the Ash bark beetle (Hylesinus varius), a small brown beetle that you can see on the NatureSpot website here. I’ve yet to find one of those destructive little creatures. And, when I got home and searched online, I struggled to find the name of the tiny metallic-green beetle I had found but, luckily, my friendly local bee expert had a couple of suggestions: ‘The beetle is either Salpingus ruficollis or Vincenzellus ruficollis’.

240501 ash bark beetle (2)

I checked both those names and decided, from the distinctive shape of the snout, that mine was likely to be Vincenzellus ruficollis, though this hasn’t yet been confirmed. It seems I was fortunate to spot this little critter as the UK Beetles website says, amongst other things, that they are ‘exclusively nocturnal and easy to spot as they crawl around on trunks and branches predating small insects and their early stages. Breeding occurs in the spring and larvae develop under bark, they are predatory and often occur near bark beetle burrows or among masses of mycelia and have been recorded from a wide range of deciduous trees….’

240501 ash bark beetle (3)