Micracanthia marginalis
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - true bug (Hemiptera) > Water bug |
| 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: | Micracanthia marginalis |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Fallén, 1807) |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Cook, 2015 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | A very scarce species in Britain which has always been rare in England and appears to have declined. There are very few recent records from a small number of sites in Surrey, Yorkshire and Cumbria |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | It's current status is very uncertain. Probably both underecorded but also genuinely rare and strongly habitat restricted. |
| 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: | Micracanthia marginalis is usually found on bare or sparsely vegetated ground in damp hollows and at the margins of small areas of standing water on heathland. Colonies are generally quite small, a few square feet of suitable habitat being sufficient to support the insect. It is an efficient colonizer over short distances and established populations can be found within a few years of the creation of suitable habitats by fire or clearance. M. marginalis is probably a predator, feeding on small invertebrates, but there appears to be no specific information on feeding habits. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Resurvey and monitor all known modern (post 1990) locations for the species.
Action targets: 3. National Monitoring Plan agreed and implemented
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites: Elstead Common, Folly Bog & Chobham Common (Surrey), Thorne Moors (Yorkshire), Solway Mosses (Cumbria)
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: damp hollow habitat creation at or close to occupied sites.
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Habitat creation
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites:
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.