A while ago I reported on the discovery of a scarce beetle species here at Langford, going by the name of Panagaeus bipustulatus - sorry, no English name for this one! This is a wetland specialist ground beetle (Carabidae) and quite a striking one too. Being a scarce species, I was rather excited about it's discovery, however was even more surprised when the specimen was re-identified a few weeks ago as something else....
P. bipustulatus has a rarer relation - known as Panagaeus cruxmajor - a Red Data Book species and until the early 2000's known only from 4 sites in England. Being so rare (and extremely similar to bipustulatus), our specimen was dismissed as the commoner of the two. But we have indeed been proved wrong and in fact have confirmed that our beetle is cruxmajor (that'll teach us to dismiss things as the 'commoner' species!).
P. cruxmajor is also thought to be a wetland specialist feeding on snails, however being so rare there hasn't been a great deal of research performed on the species in the UK! It is around 8mm in length and is distinctive not only by it's large size, but also by the orange elytra (wing cases), with a black cross across them. They are also quite 'hairy', with stiff bristles covering the upperparts of the exoskeleton.
The discovery of this species is very exciting for an entomologist such as myself (in fact several of us are over the moon!), however it represents far more than that. It proves that our wetland habitat creation is working to attract specialist (and very rare) species and indeed Panagaeus cruxmajor is now the rarest species we have on site!
Many thanks to Charlie Barnes and Mark Telfer for ID information on the specimen.