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Weevil in the face!
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Saturday, 22 May 2010 16:27
I had an awesome day looking for beetles in the West Weald. I found this bad boy in Leconfield Glade at Ebernoe Common. It landed on my face! It is a nationally scarce (Nb) weevil and an Index of Ecolgoical Continutiy Species called Platystomos albinus. This is a great find and supplements the deadwood beetles survey we carried out there last year. I think this is one of the smartest beetles I have ever seen and another example of bird-dropping mimicry. I also found another Nb saproxylic beetle in the glades new to the site, I netted a Melandrya caraboides, a very carabid looking non-carabid as the name suggests. At The Mens I found three species of longhorn beetles, Red-headed & Black-headed Cardinal Beetles, Malachite Beetle, Melasis buprestoides, Hairy Dragonfly, Cockchafer, Grass Snake and Figure-of-Eight moth.
A beetle that I caught at The Mens that I first thought was a soldier beetle turned out to be another Nb saproxylic, Ischnomera sanguinicollis! This just so happens to be a grade 1 indicator of ecological continuity, meaning it's only really known from the best ancient woodland and wood-pasture sites. That and Platystomos above are the first records for the West Weald Project area.