Silpha obscura
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - beetle (Coleoptera) > Carrion beetle |
| Red List Status: | Near Threatened (Not Relevant) [NT(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Silpha obscura |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Linnaeus, 1758 |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Lane, 2020 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Records suggest a decline and known populations are highly fragmented. Coastal, associated with sandy habitats and cliff bases. Threatened by sea level rise and increased storminess due to climate change as well as visitor and development pressure. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Extinct in England and original sites destroyed. A boreo-arctic montane species that may not survive reintroduction to alternative sites due to climate warming. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | See justification for Q2. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 5. Remedial action identified |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Unknown |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Through education and awareness raising, ensure that land managers at the coastal sandy sites are aware of the species presence and take steps to ensure carrion is available through non-intervention.
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: Education/awareness raising
Duration: 1 year
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.