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Essex Coleoptera in 1999
PETER HAMMOND
The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD
Following the report by Plant & Harvey (1996) on beetles and other insects found at various Thames
corridor sites, further data on beetles from Thames-side localities in Essex have become available
during 1999. Previously unidentified beetle samples collected by Plant & Harvey were worked
through and revealed additional species of interest, some of them new to the county. It was particularly
pleasing to find one individual of the scarce dry salt-marsh ground-beetle - Amara strenua - in a
pitfall-trap sample from Rainham Marshes (TQ 518011) taken in June 1998. Already a very local
species, A. strenua is apparently declining nationally (Luff 1998). The recent Rainham record is the
first for Essex for several decades. Peter Hodge also submitted an impressive batch of records for
various Thames-side localities, as well as some for localities in the under-worked north-west of the
county. The latter records were obtained while successfully searching for the now nationally very
rare melyrid Malachius aeneus, found at Stickling Green (TL 4732) in June 1999. Mike Cox continued
fieldwork in the Grays area, submitting records for a number of scarce species including one (the
second record for the county) for the RDB1 flea-beetle Longitarsus ferrugineus.
Fieldwork, mostly in the north-east of the county, by Nigel Cuming and Jerry Bowdrey resulted in
finds of a number of scarce beetle species during 1999, including three not previously recorded
from Essex. A number of the more notable species, including Aphodius zenkeri (a small dung beetle
most commonly found in deer parks), the leaf-mining jewel beetle Trachys minuta, and the
pine-associated weevil Pissodes castaneus (the latter two both new to Essex) were found at the
Marks Hall estate near Coggeshall.
Knowledge of the rich beetle fauna of Epping Forest has continued to improve substantially, largely
as a result of survey work commissioned by the Corporation of London (Dagley 1999a). Results of
recent investigations in the Forest, summarised by Hammond (2000), include records for some 624
species, of which 375 lacked previous post-1969 Epping records. Eighty-five of these, most of them
found during 1998 and/or 1999, were additions to the most recent list of Forest beetles (Hammond
1995). A number of beetle species associated with decaying wood have expanded their British
ranges over the past decade or two, and several of these are now well established in Epping Forest
and, in some instances, elsewhere in Essex. The Epping Forest survey work of 1998-1999 revealed,
for example, that the once very rare cucujid Uleiota planata is widely distributed and often abundant
in the Forest, under the bark of fallen or felled trees, especially those of oak or Beech. As elsewhere
in the London area, the jewel -beetle Agrilus pannonicus is now also well established in the Forest,
as probably is Agrilus sulcicollis (Dagley 1999b). Omer interesting finds during the Forest survey
were beetle species associated with Typha angustifolia at Warren Pond near Chingford. These included
several not commonly found inland, such as the small ladybird Coccidula scutellata and the small
cryptophagid Telmatophilus schoenherri Reed beetles of the genus Donacia were a particular focus
of searches while visiting various of the Epping Forest ponds during 1999. Remarkably for a single
(if extensive!) site, twelve of the fifteen British species of the genus have been recorded from the
Forest at one time or another. However, mirroring a general decline in donaciine reed-feeding beetles
nationally (Menzies & Cox 1996), several of these have not been seen in the Forest or elsewhere in
Essex during this century, and there were post-1969 records for the Forest for only one of them prior
to the 1999 fieldwork. Against this background, it was satisfying to find five Donacia species, ones
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 17 (2000)