Wood Tiger Beetle (Cicindela sylvatica)
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: | Cicindela sylvatica |
| 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: | Confined to heathland sites in West Surrey, Hampshire, Purbeck and Lulworth areas of Dorset with evidence of significant decline / range contraction. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Outside of Dorset many populations are small and isolated and this species is dispersal limited. In all locations populations depend on ongoing sensitive management of lowland heath habitat to provide larval habitat (compacted bare sand) and adult foraging habitat (heather mosaic of different age categories). |
| 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: | Maintaining areas of very open lowland heath at the landscape scale would benefit this species in terms of providing habitat connectivity. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Life history factor/s |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Structured - sufficient |
| Species Comments: | structured monitoring carried out as part of the NBftB project, ongoing monitoring in Dorset recommended, elsewhere monitoring is Opportunistic - insufficient. Reintroduced successfully to Iping Common, West Sussex in 2007 and to Brentmoor Heath, Surrey, so recovery potential better where resources allow for translocation and reintroduction. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Implement recommended scrape management from BftB project at additional site.
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Habitat creation
Duration: 6-10 years
Scale of Implementation: 1 site
High priority sites: Slepe Heath, Dorset
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Translocation to additional site in core Dorset Range as recommended by NBftB project, and other sites close to the species existing range where natural colonisation is unlikely to take place in the near future without assistance
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: (Re-)introduction
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites: Hyde Heath, Dorset
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.