Rock-rose Pot Beetle (Cryptocephalus primarius)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - beetle (Coleoptera) > Leaf beetle or ally |
| 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: | Cryptocephalus primarius |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Harold, 1872 |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Hubble, 2014 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Only known from a small number of sites, although new sites have recently been discovered. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | More data needed on the autecology of this species as this is one of several of the scarce Pot Beetle species that could not be found reliably or in sufficient numbers to allow intensive study. Recent Buglife work has added to what is known about this species, but more data needed on requirements of wild larvae, dispersal abilities and the effectiveness of introductions |
| 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: | Creation and management of calcareous grassland on sheltered, south-facing slopes |
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: | New populations recently discovered and a historical population rediscovered. More populations probably to be found. On the continent appears to be with other host-plants. Intensely thermophilic, so the impact of climate change will be interesting to study. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Targeted survey of sites with potentially suitable habitat
Action targets: 3. National Monitoring Plan agreed and implemented
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 20 sites
High priority sites: Sites with potentially suitable habitat
Comments: Focus on those areas with potentially suitable habitat that are within the bounds of the known historical range and increasing survey effort in the key period.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Translocations of adult beetles to sites with suitable habitat
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: (Re-)introduction
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites:
Comments: Tie in with surveys to confirm absence of species from donor sites
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Captive breeding for autecological research
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Ex situ conservation
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites:
Comments: Successful captive rearing has been achieved with other species in the genus and the requirements of the larvae of this species should be fairly easy to meet in captivity. What do the larvae need? What are the dispersal abilities of the adults? How will existing populations be impacted by climate change.
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.