Early Sunshiner (Amara famelica)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - beetle (Coleoptera) > Ground beetle |
| Red List Status: | Endangered (Not Relevant) [EN(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: | Amara famelica |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Zimmermann, C., 1832 |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Telfer, 2016 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Extremely scarce in England, recorded formerly on Thames Valley and (possibly) Dorset heaths and a few sites in the midlands. Thursley Heath in Surrey the only site with any records post 2000, recorded in Sutton Park Warwickshire in 1997, other records all pre 1980. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Confined to a handful of sites in England, lack of recent records suggests that the species has declined. Appears to be associated with bare ground on sandy heaths - found under heather on bare ground, running on heathland paths, hence may be threatened by inappropriate management which could be mitigated by species recovery actions. |
| 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: | Untargeted habitat management that maintains areas of early successional heath may benefit this species. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 4. Autecology and pressures understood |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Relict or natural rarity |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Associated with bare areas of sandy heaths. Appears to be rare throughout the western part of its European range. Most recent records in the national recording scheme database are 12 years old. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Survey the two sites with relatively recent records to determine a) continuing presence of the species and b) its current finescale distribution at each site to determine if and where targeted management should take place.
Action targets: 3. National Monitoring Plan agreed and implemented
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites: Thursley Common NNR Surrey, Sutton Park NNR Warwickshire
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Habitat management (creation of bare ground on heathland) to reinstate suitable condition in areas identified by action 1.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites: Thursley Common NNR Surrey, Sutton Park NNRWarwickshire
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.