Posts
I made it to 4000 species!!!
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Saturday, 2 June 2012 20:58
Last week I received an email from Paul Brock saying he had seen a rare longhorn beetle, Pyrrhidium sanguineum, on a log stack at Rewell Wood. Now, this would make for an exiting addition to my list as not only is this a smart RDB2 species, it was also new to Sussex as far as I could tell. So I did my best to engineer this as my 4000th species. I identified specimens from a survey at Iping two days ago to get me up to 3999 and held it there, hoping to make 4000 something exciting like a longhorn. I was right about one thing, my 4000th species was a longhorn beetle but not the rare one. I couldn't see that one at all. This is Pogonocherus hispidulus. I have seen all three Pogonocherus now but only ever one of each. Considering that hispidulus does not have a conservation status, it can't bee ll that common if this is the only one I have seen in three years of beetling.
I saw a few other longhorns including two Anaglyptus mysticus, this one was an ovipositing female.
And Wasp Beetles were everywhere.
This Lesser Stage Beetle posed well for me at the gate.
So, it took me about 20 months to go from 3000 to 4000. I expect the next 1000 will take a little longer. Pan-species listing has definitely made me a better naturalist and I look forward to continuing with it for the rest of my life (I'm already on 4004 species!). Here are the three Pogonocherus, from top to bottom hispidulus, hispidus and fasciculatus.
Posted in
My congratulations Graeme. Now take a deep breath and make your way to 5000...