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Short-necked oil beetle larvae found again at Castlemartin range
Natural Resources Wales said 2026 surveys found short-necked oil beetle larvae at Castlemartin, after 2022 and 2025 surveys recorded only dead adults. It called the range the only Welsh site for the species.
Natural Resources Wales said 2026 surveys found larvae of the short-necked oil beetle (Meloe brevicollis) on a small area of Castlemartin Range in Pembrokeshire, after searches in 2022 and 2025 found only dead adults1.
The agency said the find followed three years of searching and confirmed the range as the only location in Wales where the species can be found1. The Guardian, citing NRW, reported the beetle as nationally rare and described a nearly 60-year gap before it was recorded again in Wales.
NRW said the beetle depends on solitary bees: larvae attach to visiting bees, then feed on pollen in bee nests until they become adults1. It said suitable habitat is scarce in the UK because the species needs bare earth, thick vegetation and dense flower cover1.
The Guardian, citing NRW, said only about one in 10,000 larvae reach adulthood, and that populations have also been recorded in Devon (from 2006), the Hebrides and Salisbury Plain.
Surveys at Castlemartin have been run by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust as part of a Shrill Carder Bee project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund under Wales's Natur am Byth species-recovery programme, NRW said1.
Anna Hobbs of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust said it was "very exciting to find this species and evidence of its breeding again," according to NRW1. The 2026 larval numbers and spread, plus the time of year, suggested hatchlings from a larger batch of immature beetles, the agency said1.
