MP Species Champions Project Tansy beetle (Chrysolina graminis) DESCRIPTION CONSERVATION ACTION The Tansy beetle has greatly declined and remains in difficulty. Non-native Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) plants are spreading and out- © Steven Falk competing the Tansy. The Tansy beetle is big bumbling green beetle that has captured the Tansy can also be hearts and minds of people, eliminated by overgrazing, shading, particularly in York where the largest herbicides and misguided ragwort population survives along the River pullers. Ouse. TBAG and the local Tansy beetle In York this is a floodplain inhabitant champions are working with land that feeds on Tansy, and historically managers in York to get the habitat on mint in the Fens where it was right for this very rare beetle. recently rediscovered at Woodwalton Fen. Habitat restoration work in Cambridgeshire aims to create the Tansy beetles rarely fly; they find new right conditions for the reestablishment food-plants and habitats by walking. of populations across the Fens. There are a number of threats causing The beetles are monitored and bred in a long term decline in Tansy beetle captivity to ensure that the populations population sizes and distribution. do not disappear. Riverside walkers enjoy seeing the beetles, looking like green baubles on little Christmas trees, and there is keen engagement with the beetle including a Tansy Beetle Action Group (TBAG) and a project establishing local Tansy beetle champions who will protect the beetle. .