10
The Essex Naturalist
Distribution
Our knowledge of the distribution of British lacewings and allies has been
expanded considerably during the past few years, since the National Recording
Scheme for lacewings and allies was launched in April 1988. The contributions
by amateur and professional entomologists to this scheme have culminated in
the publication by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology's Biological Records
Centre of Provisional Atlas of the Neuroptera, Megaloptera, Raphidioptera and
Mecoptera of the British Isles (Plant, 1994). It should be emphasised, however,
that the maps in this work are provisional. There are large areas of Britain that
are poorly recorded or not recorded at all for lacewings and this is particularly
true for Scotland and Ireland.
Nevertheless, some interesting snippets of information may be obtained from
the data set of 14,094 records as it existed at the end of 1994 when the Atlas was
published. The distribution maps show a positive bias of records in the south-
east of England
It is evident from reviewing the data on a Watson/Praeger vice-county basis
that Surrey is the place to go to find lacewings, with no less than 63 species
recorded for all time, of which 61 are reported in the present century and 51 in
the "recent" (post-1979) period. The vice-counties in which 40 or more species
are recorded are presented as Table 2. From this the relative position of Essex in
the "league table" can clearly be seen, though it should be stressed that the
Table shows South Essex (vice-county 18) and not the whole of the county area.
Table 2: Comparison of numbers of species in vice-counties where 40 or more species
have been recorded for all time
Number of species recorded
Vice-county
Surrey (17)
South Hampshire (11)
Hertfordshire (20)
Berkshire (22)
Staffordshire (39)
S. W. Yorkshire (63)
Dorset (9)
Caernarvonshire (49)
South Devon (3)
Middlesex (21)
West Kent (16)
South Essex (18)
Bedfordshire (30)
All time since 1899 since 197
63 61 51
53 51 28
50 49 41
49 46 33
46 46 34
44 43 36
44 41 17
42 42 30
41 36 27
41 39 26
41 27 12
40 40 39
40 39 17