Bee Beetle ?

[bugwoman]

What a lovely beetle - I must keep an eye out for them if they're in the London area.

Can I just put in a plea with my GiGL hat on? If you send the records in to us (and we do like to have them) or any local records centre, could you make sure that as well as the usual details (your name, species name, date of sighting, location name, grid ref. if possible) you also add in the name of the person who identified it (or confirmed the identification) for you (in this case, Tristan)? Bear in mind that we have around 2 million records in our database for the London area, so if we can see at a glance who the determiner (identifier) was it really helps with our data quality checks. We'll recognise the names of national and local experts, and know how to contact them if we need to confirm or check on unusual sightings, but it's much more difficult to assess the skills and reliability of the vast majority of people who send in occasional records. If you've had your beetle/fly/bee etc. identified and confirmed for you online, adding that information to your record will help us with our verification procedures. A strange record with a relatively unkown recorder/determiner name (in the entomology world) is, unfortunately, much less likely to be believed - until you become an acknowledged expert in your own right, having learnt from others here and elsewhere, that is!

Thanks,

Claudia

[tristanba]

Originally Posted by aeshna5

Can you tell us more about the new arrival Tristan?

Don't know a great deal really but the first records were actually from Norfolk I think, rather than the south-east. I've never seen a Trichius anywhere so hoping to connect with one!