The Bank Holiday Monday began with snow showers and a chill northerly wind. The wind remained throughout the day but the dark and cloudy skies were replaced with an expanse of blue and in the more sheltered spots the warmth was palpable. I had a fair few gardening jobs to do but once done I managed to get a couple of hours to myself and decided to head out to look for beetles.
I ended up going up to Cavenham Heath and having a look through some of the woodland that surrounds the heath. The wood is predominantly birch with scattered oaks, pines and other bits and pieces. Most of the wood is quite dry but there are also some interesting wetter bits with nice pools which beg for some further investigation. I also reckon a visit on a warm still night later in the year could yield some good records.
I mainly targeted the plentiful dead wood that lies in abundance there and the associated fungi that grows on many of these pieces. First up under some pine bark were these tiny beetles. They are in fact another whole new family for me, the Cerylonidae. These are Cerylon histeroides and are quite commonly found across England and Wales though less so in the north and seem to be sporadic further north to the Scottish Highlands. They are found in a variety of rotten wood and under bark and can be best found searching at night.
It's a non native species, originally from Australia. This is the info on it from the old WCG Site.
First recorded as British in January 1884 by T. Wood (1884) from a single male specimen found beneath decaying pine bark at West Wickham (south of London). In September of that year it was found at the same site ‘in utmost profusion’ in boleti on decaying birch, and again that month a single male was taken from ‘a large fleshy fungus upon an ash’ a mile and a half from the site of the pine capture. A little later Fowler (1890) refers to Wood’s records and adds ‘it has not, however, been recorded from any other locality, either British or foreign.’ Fowler’s observation, considering the amount of collecting going on generally (and it must be admitted that Ciids were probably not the most popular group), reflects the fact that bilamellatus was initially slow to expand its range. The next (known) record is from Mitcham, Surrey in 1891 and following this from Shirley common, Surrey in 1904, only half a mile from Wood’s original discovery (Paviour-Smith, 1960a). Records from the following twenty years show an expansion around the London area including Kent (Orpington, Otford and Westerham), Surrey (widespread), Middlesex (Highgate) and, most satisfyingly from our point of view, from Watford, Herts. in 1921 by N.H. Joy (Hence Joy quoted the species’ occurrence in his 1932 handbook as Eng.S; very local). And so for the fifty years following its discovery the expansion of its range was restricted to the London region but it must be acknowledged, as ever, that these records also reflect the activities of coleopterists of the time. The following ten years, to 1934, shows further records within this area and also from Windsor and Arundel but it was only after 1934 that the species started to become widespread with e.g. records from Woking (1935), Oxon (1936), Nottinghamshire (1938), Cheshire (1940’s), Cambridge (1949) and Hampshire (1950). Twenty-six years after Wood’s original discovery G.C. Champion found that Cis bilamellatus Fowler, 1884 (as it was then designated) was synonymous with C. munitus Blackburn, 1888, a species widespread in Australia, and so the obvious route into the U.K. was among imported timber etc. and Paviour-Smith (loc.cit.) makes a convincing case for its introduction among herbarium specimens destined for e.g. Kew Gardens.
No subtlety for the post title inspiration today
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