The Lyons Share

I changed the vane traps at Cowdray today and found this pretty little micro moth sitting on the bottom of a trap inside a hollow oak tree. Didn't expect it to be anything exciting but thought I would give it a go. I thought it was going to be a gelechid but it's actually a pRDB3 saproxylic Dystebenna stephensi. I'm going to have to get the specimen confirmed but it is highly unlikely to be anything else considering where I found it. By the time I extracted myself from the tree, I noticed this first for West Sussex sitting on the outside of the tree. It's the Nb Pseudocistella cermaboides. I new it instantly as I found it new to Sussex at Eridge Rocks last year. Now it's in West too, it would seem I am the only person who has seen this beetle in Sussex! This is what happens if you go poking around in red-rotten hollow oak trees.

I also saw new to the site this Na Tomoxia bucephela which was doing something quite odd. I decided to take a small video to show what it was doing. Perhaps its over-sized head (hence the Latin name) is adapted to whatever it is it is doing. I also recorded the Na Dasytes niger which was new to me. I didn't find a single beetle new to the site list that didn't have a conservation status! My list is currently on 3480.