Saltmarsh Short-spur (Anisodactylus poeciloides)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - beetle (Coleoptera) > Ground beetle |
| Red List Status: | Least Concern (Not Relevant) [LC(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: | Anisodactylus poeciloides |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Stephens, 1828) |
| 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: | Confined to England. A habitat specialist which has declined in the modern period. Present in only 16 hectads post-1980 and close to qualifying as Nationally Rare (Telfer 2016). |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Current distribution is almost entirely confined to the Thames estuary and the coasts of Essex and Suffolk; there is just one modern record from the south coast where the species has declined. |
| 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: | No |
| Justification: | This species would not benefit from untargeted management |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 4. Autecology and pressures understood |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Although historically regarded as a saltmarsh species, A. poeciloides seems to be more of a grassland and saltpan species which is rarely found in saltmarshes proper and avoids exposure to tidal conditions. It seems to use both areas of relatively open and saline terrain and denser adjacent vegetation where the soil may not be at all saline. These conditions may be found, for example, in the vicinity of a saline or brackish pool or borrowdyke that has gently sloping edges as these dry out. It's distribution within a site is likely to be limited to small patches of relatively open ground with early succession salt-associated plants (e.g. glasswort, sea aster) that are surrounded by or adjacent to relatively dense grass or other vegetation. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Survey known and extant former sites on the south coast and assess their current potential suitability to support the species
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: Dibden Bay SSSI, Lymington Salterns
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Strategic reintroductions to site(s) with suitable habitat at locations on the south coast
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: (Re-)introduction
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 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.