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COLEOPTERA REPORT
RECENT, NOTEWORTHY COLEOPTERA FROM SUFFOLK ROSS PIPER Introduction From the searing, almost Mediterranean, Summer of 2022 to the wash-out of 2023, our insects have faced some significant climatic challenges over the last couple of years. For most of the Spring and Summer months I am carrying out fieldwork in places other than Suffolk, so most of my contributions to these observations stem from work at Ickworth Park in 2022 as well as some casual records. Regardless, there have been a number of interesting records, some of which add to the Suffolk Coleoptera list. I’m probably biased, but beetles are fascinating animals and I encourage anyone with an established or nascent curiosity in nature to take a closer look at them. New resources for beetle identification appear online all the time and you can find them year-round if you look in the right places. You don’t really need much in the way of equipment to find them, although a sweep net, beating tray, sieve and small containers are perhaps the most useful bits of kit to buy or make. Beyond these, the only other thing you need is a microscope, which can be expensive, but there are lots of reasonably priced new and second-hand ones out there. There are over 4,000 species in the UK and new ones are colonising every year. Gathering information on the distribution of these species is important, but we also need to understand their ecology as this information is lacking for the vast majority of them. Where exactly do they live? What do they eat? What eats them? What other species do they interact with and how? These are just a few of the questions you can help to answer. For more information on getting started or developing your interest in beetles, please get in touch. Ickworth Park Saproxylic Beetle Survey I find the assemblage of beetle species associated with deadwood really fascinating, mainly because such a dizzying array of species are associated with this habitat. In the UK alone, approximately 650 beetle species representing 53 families are dependent on dead or decaying wood for all or part of their life cycle. On the whole, we know very little about the distribution and ecology of these species. This led me install some flight interception traps at Ickworth Park in the Summer of 2022. These traps were in place from May until and September and they yielded 93 saproxylic beetle species, 48 of which were new to the site. Twenty-one of these 48 species have a conservation status. Tony Allen and Roger Booth helped with the identification of the species. Although the site is principally known for its ancient Oaks, the tree that yielded the most species was a large, pollarded Beech in the estate woodland (Fig. 1). Thirty-six beetle species were recorded in the trap on this tree. Perhaps the most interesting species caught during this survey was the staphylinid Stichoglossa semirufa (Erichson) (Fig. 2). One individual was collected in the June-July sample from an Oak in the parkland with a large rot hole (TL 81932 61710). Nationally, this species is only known from six other records spread between 1898 and now. Next to nothing is known about its habitat requirements, but for it to be Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 59 (2023)