RSPB Scotland is supporting National Insect Week from 20-26 June - a celebration of some of the smaller creatures in our natural world that is organised by the Royal Entomological Society. If you haven't heard of it before, National Insect Week encourages people of all ages to learn more about insects from beetles, bees and butterflies to dragonflies, damselflies and stoneflies. In preparation here's a look back at a few of the exciting insect discoveries and stories from our nature reserves in Scotland.


I want you to visualise a map of the world, not in detail but just enough for a rough picture. There's an incredible wealth of wildlife scattered across that map, appearing in every size, shape and colour imaginable. Now start zooming in.

Depending on which continent or country you choose to focus on the species, or mix of species, can be very different. Especially when you consider masses of land that are completely cut off by water; any creature that can't fly has no option but to stay put. Because of this, in Scotland, it can be that some of the wildlife you find on the mainland just doesn't occur on particular islands and the same is true of the reverse.

Island life

Have you ever heard of the short-necked oil beetle for example? It's a rare flightless insect that's only found in two UK locations; one is Devon and the other is the Isle of Coll. But it's absent from the Scottish mainland, or at least hasn't been discovered there yet. They were actually thought to be extinct in the UK until 2008.

The beetles are named for the toxic oil secretion they produce when threatened and RSPB Scotland and Buglife researchers counted 150 of them during recent surveys on Coll. The habitat found there is perfect for them - a mix of dune systems and wildflower meadows. 

On the other side of the coin, there’s a day moth called the six-spot burnet which is distributed across Scotland, and is relatively common in England, Wales and Ireland. However it had never been recorded out on Tiree until last year. A team from RSPB Scotland were carrying out insect survey work on the island when they came across the insect on the ground, basking in the sunshine.

These moths can often be mistaken for butterflies because they are so brightly coloured, with a lovely metallic sheen, and are active during daylight hours.

Beetlemania

But don’t get us wrong, it’s not just the islands where exciting discoveries can be made. Two rare beetles were discovered at our Abernehty nature reserve near Aviemore, and close to Aberdeen at our Loch of Strathbeg reserve during recent surveys. It was the first time either of the insects had been seen in Scotland for decades.

The beetle found at Abernethy was a water scavenger beetle called Cryptopleurum subtile, and it actually turned out to be the most northerly ever record of the species here, having been collected from woody debris along the River Nethy. It was also only the second record for the country, with the first being from a cut grass pile in Melrose back in 1969.

The second beetle, found at Strathbeg, was a whirligig called Gyrinus paykulli, which occurs mainly in lochs and spends a lot of time in reeds and other plants on the edges of the water. They have two pairs of eyes (one facing up and one facing down) because they live on the surface of the water.

They are also known to gather in groups called flotillas which perform a special 'dance' when disturbed, whizzing around at high speed. Again, this was the most northerly record of this beetle to date in Scotland with previous discoveries being made in Fife and Perthshire.  

And let’s not forget the modest caddisfly 

While fairly widespread across lowland England and Wales, the caddisfly known as Molanna angustata had never been seen in Scotland before, until one of our trainee ecologists, Genevieve Dalley, came across two of them last year at RSPB Scotland Insh Marshes in the Highlands. 

Molanna angustata is quite a small flying insect with pale brown colouring and long antennae. They’re usually found living in lakes, ditches, ponds and canals.

Despite their perhaps plain appearance, they have a pretty interesting lifecycle. The larvae live in water, where they create a protective case out of tiny sand and stone particles, sticking them together with silk to make a tube.

When they have transformed to a winged adult they chew their way out of the case and swim up to the surface where they eventually fly away. However, this does have to be done quickly or aquatic predators, like fish, will eat them.

It’s pretty exciting that new species like this are still being discovered in Scotland and there’s so much to learn about many of them. If this blog has done enough to pique your interest in insects, you can find out more about National Insect Week, including ways to get involved, by clicking here.