Mordellistena nanuloides
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: | Mordellistena nanuloides |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Ermisch, 1967 |
| 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: | A small number of records from the south. It is possible it is a recent colonist at the northern edge of its range, with only a toe hold in the UK. Population trend unknown. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | The latest atlas data shows a strong increase in the range and frequency of this species over the last 20 years. |
| 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: | Habitat mosaics in coastal locations may benefit this species |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 1. Taxonomy established |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Unknown |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Variation of morphological characters makes ID of this species and others in the genus very difficult. Molecular taxonomy a priority to define species boundaries and to better understand larval ecology |
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: Unknown
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.
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.