- Meloe brevicollis
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Meloe brevicollis Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Coleoptera Family: Meloidae Genus: Meloe Species: M. brevicollis Binomial name Meloe brevicollis
Panzer, 1793Meloe brevicollis is a European oil beetle. It is also known as the "short-necked oil beetle".
It had been thought that the beetle had been extinct in the UK since the 1940s, due to intensive farming. However, in 2007 a small population was discovered in south of Devon.[1]
In 2010, 40 beetles were found on four sites on the Hebridean island of Coll. The beetle is flightless and has parasitic young that depend on solitary nesting bees for survival, raising the question of how it arrived on the island. Jeanne Robinson, the curator of entomology at Glasgow Museums said: "They are very vulnerable to disturbance and what the Devon and Coll sites have in common is that they have been relatively undisturbed for a long time.... We are hoping there is the potential to do some genetic analysis to see where the population came from." There are records of the beetle being found in Ireland and it is possible the colony had been dispersed from there.[2]
References
- ^ "Beetle re-emerges after 60 years". BBC News. 2007-03-19. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/6464531.stm.
- ^ Ross, John (16 July 2010) "Beetle mania as 'extinct' insect found on Scots isle". The Scotsman. Retrieved 19 July 2010.
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