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The Essex Naturalist
vegetated south-facing landslip grassland at Bushy Hill (South Woodham
Ferrers), old grazing marsh grassland with sparsely vegetated hummocks and
anthills at Fobbing Marshes and Kersey Marsh (Benfleet Downs) and sparsely
vegetated grassland on south-facing terrace gravels at Broom Hill and Hall Hill
(West Tilbury). More recently it has been taken on sparsely vegetated grassland
that has developed since the 1950s at Goshams Farm on an old waste site
between Tilbury and East Tilbury and at Barking where PFA from the adjacent
power station has formed some extra-ordinary desert-like landscapes as well as
grassland, scrub and marshy habitats. The majority of Barking Levels are already
destroyed and covered by housing developments.
Threats
Changes in management and disturbance or improvement of grazing marsh
grasslands and old sea walls, development of 'Brown Field' sites and amenity
pressures especially at fragile remnant dune sites.
Myrmica lobicornis Nylander
National status Common County status Essex Rare
Threat status Essex Threatened Frequency Ratio 1.0
Tetrad Percentage 0.5% Recorded 1km sq. percentage 1.0%
Myrmica lobicornis Nylander
Distribution
In Essex this distinctive species is very rare in the county and restricted to
unimproved grassland sites with recent records for only six localities, Mucking
Heath (Orsett Golf Course) where the ant was numerous in the ancient grass