The Lyons Share

I've been helping set up an invertebrate survey at Eridge Rocks today with Alice Parfitt and Mark Telfer. I spotted this Wasp Beetle ovipositing on a birch snag, it made me realise how rarely I have seen longhorn beetles ovipositing. I saw quite a few saproxylic beetles today that I had not seen before including a couple of tiny but distinctive Cis species, several of the nationally scarce Triplax russica running around with the brighter but commoner Triplax aenea and this little round beetle which I have only ever seen dead in traps before, Anisotoma humeralis.

Other species of note included the nationally scarce species Melasis buprestoides and the hoverfly Brachypalpus laphriformis as well as a Grey Birch moth. We found a bee that looked very strange indeed but after some research, I think it was a drone Honey Bee, quite unlike the workers I am used to seeing, quite an impressive looking beast. I finished the day on 3320.