One of the rarest beetles in the UK – the Crucifix Ground Beetle - has been discovered at the National Trust’s Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire after an absence of more than 50 years.
The Crucifix Ground Beetle, known as Panagaeus cruxmajor, is listed as an Endangered Species in the UK’s Red Data Book and is a priority for conservation in the Government’s Biodiversity Action Plan.
Before the discovery at Wicken Fen the beetle was thought to survive at only three places in the UK, and at one of those it had not been seen for ten years. The eye-catching orange and black Crucifix Ground Beetle was last recorded at Wicken Fen in 1951, despite regular and widespread searches by experts.
The rare Crucifix Ground Beetle was considered a great prize by Victorian entomologists. Charles Darwin, a very keen collector of beetles, found the species ‘near Cambridge’ when he was a Cambridge University undergraduate in the 1820s. The beetle was found at Wicken Fen many times in the early part of the 20th Century but records became increasingly sparse, until the last one was found on the Sedge Fen at Wicken Fen in 1951.
Stuart Warrington, the National Trust Nature Conservation Advisor who discovered the beetle said:
'This beetle is the rarest species I have ever seen and in the insect world it is perhaps the equivalent of a Bittern for ornithologists. To say that I was surprised and excited to have found it during one of my regular surveys at Wicken Fen is an under-statement.'
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