Mordella holomelaena
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - beetle (Coleoptera) > Darkling beetle or ally |
| Red List Status: | Vulnerable (Not Relevant) [VU(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: | Mordella holomelaena |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Apfelbeck, 1914 |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Alexander et al., 2014 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Fragmented populations throughout England, but easily overlooked and difficulties with morphological taxonomy confound distribution data. Molecular taxonomy needed to clarify issues with morphological taxonomy and improve resolution of distribution data. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Listed as vulnerable on the GB red list. Whole of GB population is in England and is thought to be currently stable so no actions are proposed at this time. |
| 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: | The creation of landscape scale habitat mosaics would likely benefit this species. Determining the potential degree of benefit will only really be possible when we know more about its taxonomy and autecology. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 1. Taxonomy established |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Unknown |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Small, easily overlooked and difficulties with morphological taxonomy confound distribution data and status. Autecology, beyond broad habitat preferences, largely unknown. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Define taxonomy using molecular tools
Action targets: 1. Taxonomy established
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites: Unknown
Comments: Difficult to identify this and related species using morphological characters. Molecular taxonomy needed to define species boundaries. Appropriate markers sequenced from this and very similar species across a swathe of their range. Larvae may only reliably be identified using DNA sequencing.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Define autecology of larvae and adults at known sites.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites:
Comments: What are micro-habitat preferences and diet of the adults and larvae? What are the dispersal abilities of the adults? Answering these questions is currently confounded by the shortcomings of morphological taxonomy, especially the larvae
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.