NOTES ON THE SUFFOLK LIST OF COLEOPTERA: 9 18 SPECIES NEW TO THE SUFFOLK LIST

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NOTES ON THE SUFFOLK LIST OF COLEOPTERA

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NOTES ON THE SUFFOLK LIST OF COLEOPTERA: 9 18 SPECIES NEW TO THE SUFFOLK LIST WITH SIGNIFICANT RECORDS FROM THE YEAR 2001 DAVID R. NASH This paper discusses 18 species of beetle which should be considered New to Suffolk for the Index to these Transactions; records of nine of these are reported here for the first time whilst details of nine others which have been published relatively recently in the national literature are presented, with additional records for these species if available. These species are all asterisked. Noteworthy records from 2001 are reported, together with discussion of the species which were the subject of my appeal for records (Nash, 2001). The national status for scarce and threatened species is given, following Hyman (1992; 1994) for terrestrial species and Foster (2000) for aquatic ones. All records are allocated to vice county (v.c. 25, East; v.c. 26, West) and National Grid references are provided, with those assigned by me to earlier records being placed in square brackets. All records are my own except where indicated. Unless specifically mentioned, there are no Suffolk specimens of any of the species discussed in the Claude Morley/Chester Doughty collection at Ipswich Museum. CARABIDAE *Elaphropus ( = Tachys) parvulus (Dejean) Nb Lindroth (1974) cited Elaphropus parvulus from only Devon and Cornwall (querying the old Lancashire and Cheshire records) but in the intervening years it has been found to be widely dispersed in southern England, typically occurring on sandy and gravelly soils and with a number of recent captures suggesting that it may be spreading and availing itself of man-made habitats such as old walls, roadside kerbstones and patios, the slabs of the latter often being laid on a sharp sand base (Welch, 1992). The first Suffolk eaxample was found in the county on 19 September 1993 on a patio at Martlesham Heath Village, East Suffolk (TM 2344) (H. Mendel) and this is the basis for the single East Anglian dot on the species’ map in Luff’s ground beetle “Atlas” (1998). A further East Suffolk record can now be added: 11 July 2002, several examples by grubbing among gravel and large stones in a disused gravel pit at Barham (TM 1351). *Pterostichus quadrifoveolatus Letzner (angustatus Duftchmid) Nb This ground beetle was first taken on burnt ground at Crowthorne, Berkshire in the spring of 1916 (Tomlin, 1916). It has been considered an established migrant for the last century, but recently Whitehouse (2000) found it as fossil remains (dated to circa. 2900–2350 BC) from a charcoal-containing sample on Hatfield Moors, South Yorkshire indicating that it had previously been a member of the British beetle fauna. She postulates that it had originally become extinct as a result of a decline in fire habitats but that since the turn of the century conditions have once more become favourable, perhaps due to the prescribed management policy of burning of peatlands and heather moorlands and possibly the expansion of conifer plantations.

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 38 (2002)


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