The Lyons Share

Deadwood

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Tuesday, 15 June 2010 18:44

Yesterday, Mark Telfer was down at The Mens carrying out a visit of an ongoing survey on deadwood invertebrates, focusing on beetles. We serviced the traps, searched around dead and decaying wood, looked at nectar sources in Badlands and investigated fungi on fallen trees. We certainly saw a lot of things and the vast majority of invertebrates are still to be identified...not by me I should add!

We did see a number of nationally scarce deadwood invertebrates including another individual of the scarce Ischnomera sanguinicollis (top photo). Other species included the tortoise shaped Thymalus limbatus, the black-and-red Tillus elongatus and the saproxylic hoverfly Volucella inflata. However, the total of nationally scarce species surely reached double figures and we must have enough species to calculate a preliminary SQI. Exciting stuff, I'm keen to see how it compares to Ebernoe Common and other sites in the West Weald. I have also included a photo of the Speckled Longhorn Beetle Pachytodes cerambyciformis (bottom photo) that we saw in some numbers nectaring on bramble and rose in Badlands.

Posted in beetles, deadwood, fungi, The Mens