Coleoptera Atlases Development:

Beetles (Coleoptera), are amongst the most numerous creatures on Earth as is indicated by the oft quoted reference supposedly made by the British scientist, J.B.S. Haldane, who is reported to have said, that God had "an inordinate fondness for beetles." as there were so many species, and so many individuals, in the World.

The sheer numbers of different families of beetles, never mind individual species, means that it would be nigh on impossible to develop a Distribution Atlas which covered them all in one document.

Consequently, RECORD is assisting Cheshire’s County Coleoptera recorder, Mr Don Stenhouse, to collate the data needed to produce a few atlases based around specific coleoptera families (e.g. Cantharidae (Soldier Beetles)). These will be produced as CD’s with maps and, hopefully, photographs of the species involved along with short descriptions of the species and their biology.

How Can You Help?:

You can easily become involved by sending in your beetle records to RECORD offices (via e-mail on: [email protected] , or via snail-mail at: RECORD, Oakfield House, Chester Zoological Gardens, Upton, Chester, Cheshire, CH2 1LH).

You can help even more by agreeing to undertake beetle (including Ladybird) surveys from anywhere in the Cheshire region.

Please Note: We are interested in all beetle records including pest species and those in your garden, seen when you are out walking, and/or from more formalised surveys.

Should you have access to old records in lists, notebooks or journals we would be very pleased to be allowed to take photocopies of such documents. This will enable us to enter the data whilst allowing almost immediate return of the valuable documentation to the owner.

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