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Beetle News Vol. 4.1 May 2012 ISSN 2040-6177 Beetle News Circulation: An informal email newsletter circulated periodically to those interested in British beetles Copyright: Text & drawings © 2011 Authors Photographs © 2011 Photographers Citation: Beetle News 4.1 May 2012 Editor: Richard Wright, 70, Norman road, Rugby, CV21 1DN Email:[email protected] Contents Editorial - Richard Wright 1 Introductory photoguide to British beetles - advance notice Richard Wright 1 Beetle recording in Gloucestershire – an appeal for records - Keith Alexander 2 Beetle recording in Cornwall – an appeal for records - Keith Alexander 2 A major disadvantage of the ‘Typomap’ system for recording locality data - Andrew Duff 2 An Australian weevil, Achopera alternata Lea, 1910 (Curculionidae), in Wales - John Bratton 3 Flood Debris in Warwickshire, Spring 2012 - Richard Wright & Steve Lane 4 Observations of Hypulus quercinus (Melandryidae) - John Bratton 7 Westmorland Plateumaris sericea (Chrysomelidae): a clarification - John Bratton 7 Philonthus parvicornis Gravenhorst in Kent - Ron Carr 8 Eucnemids in Warwickshire – A Summary - Steve Lane 9 Beginner’s Guide : Broad-nosed weevils in broad-leaved trees - Richard Wright 10 Editorial Introductory photoguide to British beetles - Richard Wright advance notice Richard Wright This is the first issue for seven months, the main reason for the delay being a lack of contributions. My particular A question I am often asked is “How can I get thanks to John Bratton for sending three articles and my started on beetles?” and another is “What is the best apologies to him and to other authors for the delay in field guide to beetles?”. The second question is easy publishing some articles. to answer, there are no true field guides to beetles as most species cannot be identified in the field! The In spite of the difficulty of obtaining enough material, I first is more difficult. In order to help beginners intend to continue producing Beetle News. However, I have familarise themselves with the more distinctive decided to reduce the planned number of issues from four to species, and also to recognise beetle families more three each year. easily, I have been working on a simple onscreen guide using photographs of set specimens. This will show over 2,000 species, more than half of British beetles, including all of the more distinctive species and at least one representative from each genus, except for the smallest and most difficult groups. A sample screenshot is shown opposite, though obviously the quality is much better in the actual product. This guide will be made available as a free download. I had hoped to complete it by now, but although 90% complete we have now entered the main survey season and time is at a premium. It will certainly be ready by the next issue of Beetle News, where full information will be available, but the first announcement will be made on the beetles- britishisles group : http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/beetles- britishisles/ 1 Beetle News Vol. 4.1 May 2012 ISSN 2040-6177 Beetle recording in Gloucestershire – an appeal for Beetle recording in Cornwall – an appeal for records records The most up-to-date review of Cornwall’s beetle fauna Coleoptera of Gloucestershire was published by David was published as part of the Victoria County History in Atty in 1983. I have been acting as ‘county recorder’ for 1906! At present we have no up-to-date checklist let alone the Gloucestershire Naturalists Society for some time a modern review. With encouragement from the since then and have been collating all records from the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Federation of Biological county in order to produce an up-date to David Atty’s Recorders (CISFBR) and the Environmental Records review. I moved away from the county in 2003 and so it is Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (ERCCIS), I time to terminate my official duties and to finish with have begun work on developing a county checklist and a publication of a new review of the beetle fauna. My full review of the beetle fauna. Ian McClenaghan has been personal deadline is next winter and I would like to invite helping where he can. We are fortunate in having a stand- anybody who has visited the county in recent years and alone biological records database – ERICA – which has made beetle records to send me copies for incorporation been populated with the historic data by the old Cornwall into the county record. Biological Records Unit (CBRU) and which has been kept current by Colin French. This makes the checklist The species entries are all written and my main task for and review task much easier as so much of the this year is to write the introductory texts. The aim is to groundwork has already taken place. Cerambycidae have produce a companion volume to Michael Darby’s already been reviewed and good progress has been made Wiltshire Beetles (2009) and Andrew Duff’s Beetles of on the Carabidae. If any readers have beetle records from Somerset (1993). Three of the South West’s six counties Cornwall I would be very pleased to hear from them. The will then have modern beetle reviews. intention is to maintain the ERICA record and to use it to develop the checklist and full review, which will form a Keith Alexander parallel resource for people who are interested in the county’s beetle fauna. These will be available on-line Send records to : through the CISFBR and ERCCIS websites. [email protected] Keith Alexander [email protected] A major disadvantage of the ‘Typomap’ system for gothic ‘L’ (as distinct from the non-Gothic ‘L’ recording locality data which represents Lundy). Andrew Duff 110 Cromer Road Used sensibly, where records are first sorted by West Runton country, the ‘Typomap’ system might have some Norfolk merit, although hardly anyone now knows what the NR27 9QA abbreviations stand for. However in an electronic age of databases and spreadsheets, where unique Balfour-Browne’s ‘Typomap’ system of two-letter codes are required, the system simply doesn’t cut it. subcounty abbreviations is briefly described in A Having recently tried to understand the late Leslie Coleopterist’s Handbook (Cooter & Barclay, 2006: Frewin’s card index of beetle records, which used 327-328). However these authors failed to point out the ‘Typomap’ abbreviations but didn’t specify a fundamental flaw of this now largely outdated which country was being referred to, I can vouch sytem: the two letter codes are only unique within for just how confusing this can be, more especially each country, not within the British Isles as a whole. as he collected widely in Britain and Ireland. In my The following codes are duplicated: AN = North view the ‘Typomap’ system always was an Aberdeenshire and Antrim; EC = East Cornwall and abomination and is best forgotten about and never East Cork; ED = Edinburgh and East Donegal; NS mentioned ever again. = North Somerset and North Sutherland; SG = Stirling and South Galway; SK = Selkirk and South Reference Kerry; SL = South Lancashire and Sligo; SS = South Somerset and South Sutherland; ST = COOTER, J. & BARCLAY, M.V.L. (eds.) 2006. A Staffordshire and South Tipperary; WC = West Coleopterist’s Handbook (4th edition). Orpington: Cornwall and West Cork; WI = West Inverness- Amateur Entomologists’ Society. shire and Wicklow; WX = Wexford and West Sussex. The ‘Typomap’ system also deviates from the Watsonian vice-county system in several places, including the use of an ill-defined central London area, which is confusingly given the symbol of a 2 Beetle News Vol. 4.1 May 2012 ISSN 2040-6177 An Australian weevil, Achopera alternata Lea, 1910 (Curculionidae), in Wales. At the end of a hot afternoon's collecting with Mike Howe in the National Trust's Erddig Park, SJ3247, vice-county Denbighshire, on 16 May 1998, I picked up a 6.5 mm long (measured from the tip of the elytra to the tip of the rostrum), brown, scale-covered weevil beside a sap-run on a beech. Weevils are not a group I routinely try to identify, but I was under standing orders from my then line manager Adrian Fowles to collect all weevils I found in Wales, so this one went into the pot and was passed to Adrian a few days later. He quickly realised it was not a weevil known from Britain, nor did it appear to be a Europe- an species. The first consequence was that Mike re- ceived a late-night phone call asking whether he had actually seen me take the weevil. Once I had per- suaded Adrian it was not a practical joke, it was dis- patched to Howard Mendel in the Natural History Museum, where it was recognised as Antipodean. At the end of July 1998 Howard sent the following e- mail. “Richard Thompson had one last search of the col- lections to identify John Bratton's mystery weevil, before sending it off to Australia - and managed to identify it. It is Achopera alternata Lea. We have two specimens in the collection, from Tasmania, but John's specimen better matches the form of the spe- cies described from Eastern Australia.” I can find no information on the web about the biolo- gy of this species and cannot offer any explanation of how it arrived at Erddig. A gift shop selling peat-free plants is advertised on the Erddig web page but there doesn't appear to be an extensive garden centre. The weevil was caught in semi-natural parkland well away from buildings, and there is no reason to sup- pose the National Trust was involved in its occur- rence at Erddig. A. alternata has since been found a second time in Britain, in Hertfordshire, according to the website of the Watford Coleoptera Group (Thewcg.org.uk).