Nemozoma elongatum
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - beetle (Coleoptera) > Soldier beetle or ally |
| Red List Status: | Vulnerable (Not Relevant) [VU(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: | Nemozoma elongatum |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Linnaeus, 1761) |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Alexander, 2014 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Vulnerable, based on the restricted the area of occupancy (4 tetrads) with severely fragmented populations (4 locations known). |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Minimum intervention management will not provide conditions suitable for the development of suitable host trees |
| 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: | Low - Relict or natural rarity |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Develops in small girth, thin-barked dying or freshly dead stems of a wide variety of trees and shrubs, where it lives in the burrows of bark beetles and feeds on their larvae. In Britain it has formerly been especially associated with Pteleobius vittatus and Hylesinus varius, mostly known from split elm and ash palings, and often found in the wood-yards where palings were being made - this industry has long since ceased. Two recent reports are from along the Thames, both from dead Blackthorn Prunus spinosa stems inhabited by Scolytus rugulosus and rich in other saproxylic beetles - one an old tall mixed hedge through allotments in an otherwise built up area, the other a fairly dense belt of scrub with lots of sloe at the top of the saltmarsh, in quite an exposed situation next to the Thames Estuary. The issue is, why is it so rare, if these resources are numerous? |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Research to characterise the ecology of the beetle, in terms of the size, condition, situation and management of host trees
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites: Isleworth (Middlesex) and Lower Rainham (Kent)
Comments: Insufficient data are available to fully characterise the ecology of the beetle, in terms of the size, condition, and situation of suitable dead wood
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Ensure site managers are aware of species presence (update them with Action 1 results) and its vulnerability
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Advice & support
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites: To be determined based on the results of Action 1
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.