Caterpillar-hunter (Calosoma inquisitor)
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: | Calosoma inquisitor |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Linnaeus, 1758) |
| 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: | Although records are widely scattered, hence classification as Least Concern, the majority of recent records in England are from two core areas - Dendels Wood in South Devon and in woodland around Coniston Water in Cumbria - suggesting very few sites have large populations. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Autecological information from the two sites which appear to have more abundant populations would help inform suitable woodland management for this species. |
| 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: | Maintenance of the extent and connectivity of old oak woodland |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 2. Biological status assessment exists |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Unknown |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Widespread but scarce resident of old oak woodland. Can be abundant following outbreaks of caterpillar prey such as Tortrix species (Turner and Luff, 2007), there is superficial evidence in the pattern of records of cyclical peaks but recording effort cannot be ruled out without a more detailed analysis of these. Arboreal habits may mean small populations of this species outside of such peaks in abundance are rarely encountered in the wider landscape outside of key sites. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Devise an appropriate programme of monitoring for this species at core sites to better understand how it could be searched for elsewhere
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Targeted monitoring
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites: Dendles Wood SSSI South Devon, Dodgson Wood / Coniston Water SSSI Cumbria
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.