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COLEOPTERA REPORT
RECENT, NOTEWORTHY COLEOPTERA FROM SUFFOLK ROSS PIPER
Ross Piper
Introduction Much of my work has taken me out of the county this season, so I didn’t do very much beetling in Suffolk this year. It has also been a very strange year in terms of the weather with the early Summer being inclement to say the least. Beetles were not hit as hard by this as some groups, e.g. bees and butterflies, and some of them appeared to have positively thrived. One of these was the Musk Beetle Aromia moschata, one of our largest and most stunning beetles. Large females can be up to 4 cm long. In life it has a distinctive, musky odour, hence the common name and when threatened it emits a rasping sound by rubbing the sections of its thorax together. The larvae feed on the wood of large riparian willows, taking as long as 3 years to grow, aided in the digestion of this tough material by symbiotic microorganisms in their gut. The Gipping Valley, especially in and around Stowmarket appears to be something of a stronghold for this beautiful beetle and this year there appears to have been more sightings than in the rest of the time I’ve lived here.
It seems to have been a bumper year for Musk Beetles Aromia moschata, which have a stronghold along the River Gipping in and around Stowmarket. This is a dead specimen I found on the courts at Stowmarket Tennis Club.
Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 60 (2024)