Streaked Bombardier Beetle (Brachinus sclopeta)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - beetle (Coleoptera) > Ground beetle |
| Red List Status: | Data Deficient (Not Relevant) [DD(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Brachinus sclopeta |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Fabricius, 1792) |
| 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: | Almost all records are from post-industrial sites in the Docklands area of London and it is therefore extremely vulnerable to development. Many former sites have been developed with inadequate mitigation or entirely destroyed. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Not recorded in England since 1805. |
| 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: | This species is usually associated with very early-successional habitats comprising a substantial component of bare and sparsely-vegetated ground. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 6. Recovery solutions trialled |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | It remains debatable whether modern populations are native or non-native in origin Telfer (2016). The balance of evidence points towards the latter and the London Docklands populations are most likely to have been introduced in marine transport. However, an apparently established population found on an organic farm in Berkshire in 2021 is not consistent with an introduced origin, as were many historic 19th century records from widely scattered locations on the south coast of England (Telfer 2016). These observations fit an emerging picture of a highly dispersive species able to colonise Britain from the near continent, whose ecological requirements are now fulfilled by a wider variety of early successional habitats than the urban post-industrial situations from which it was originally reported in the modern era. Although it remains extremely rare and local in Britain, it is a species likely to benefit from climate change and its apparent shift to a less specialised ecological niche space may already reflect this. Arable margins are frequently exploited by B. sclopeta on the continent. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: The reinstatement of suitable habitat on the University of East London campus.
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: Habitat creation
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: 1 site
High priority sites: UEL campus
Comments: There have been no records from the UEL mitigation site (the ‘beetle bump’) since 2019 and the bare rubble habitat created has now been largely overgrown by grasses. One long term benefit of recreating suitable habitat at this location is that it will be unaffected by future development. Given that the species is established in the general area, the site is likely to be recolonised by B. sclopeta in the near future without the need for reintroduction.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: The creation of suitable habitat at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, where the species has been occasionally recorded, but where habitat is becoming increasingly unsuitable.
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: Habitat creation
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: 1 site
High priority sites: Olympic Park, Stratford
Comments: Given that the species is established in the general area, the site is likely to be recolonised by B. sclopeta in the near future without the need for reintroduction. Like UEL, this would function as a protected site. The Park has a Biodiversity Manager (Tom Bellamy) and is subject to a regular Biodiversity Action Plan.
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Based on outcomes of actions 1&2, instigate a monitoring programme to monitor the population at the UEL campus and the Olympic Park.
Action targets: 3. National Monitoring Plan agreed and implemented
Action type: Targeted monitoring
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites: UEL Campus, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
Comments: Further actions focussing on autecology would not be profitable, since the species' usual habitat requirements are well known. In addition, there is some evidence that it may be becoming less ecologically specialised in Britain, which is a likely outcome of climate change in the long term anyway.
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.