The scaly cricket still at Branscombe

The scaly cricket (Pseudomogoplistes vicentae) is a very rare insect in the Britain – in fact it is only known from 3 sites: - Chesil Beach (Dorset), Branscombe Beach (Devon) and Marloes Sands (Pembrokeshire). It was first found on Chesil Beach in 1949, it was found at Branscombe in 1998 and in Pembrokeshire in 1999. It is a curious insect whose life cycle isn’t fully understood, it is nocturnal and lives on shingle beaches feeding on general detritus. A full account of its discovery in Britain can be found in Peter Sutton’s paper in British Wildlife magazine (1999) volume 10 pages 145-51.
In January 2007 the MSC Napoli was deliberately grounded in Lyme Bay off Branscombe following damage it suffered in a storm in Western Approaches. Few will forget the scenes of thousands of ‘wreckers’ looting the containers which came ashore on Branscombe. Once the containers stopped coming ashore and law and order was returned to the parish of Branscombe the clear up operation instigated by the Napoli’s insurers began. This involved clearing up the general rubbish and cleaning the beach of oil. All of this bode very badly for the scaly cricket living as it does in the direct impact and pollution zone.

A number of ecologists and entomologists expressed concern over the fate of the scaly cricket with many emails and phone calls ensuing. This turned into an unfortunate Chinese whispers exercise resulting in a note in British Wildlife 19 p207 stating that a healthy population of scaly crickets had survived. This was untrue – no one had seen a scaly cricket at Branscombe to my knowledge following the Napoli disaster.

As county recorder for orthoptera in Devon I set myself the goal in 2008 to try and re-find the species at Branscombe. I made my first trip in late August at dusk and after trudging a kilometre up the shingle beach it started to rain and I didn’t find anything except rock hoppers. Following a conservation with Peter Sutton, the National Scheme Organiser for Orthoptera I set 5 pitfall traps at various points on the beach towards Beer Head, baited with some cat biscuits, pieces of apple and a bit of my Cornish pasty! I returned a couple of days later to find 2 traps had been vandalised, two only contained rock hoppers but the final one contained a single adult female scaly cricket.

Although only one animal was trapped I am confident that a good population survives. Fortunately the colony has always existed at the other end of the beach from the major Napoli activity and as the 1999 British Wildlife article stresses scaly crickets can be very hard to find.

I guess that an animal that lives under the shingle and flourishes despite winter storms and moving shingle terraces was always odds on favourite to survive the Napoli. Good news nevertheless.

Adrian Colston