Species Account for Eluma purpurascens

Essex RDB: Listed
Threat: Essex Threatened



Additional Phenology Data

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Essex Red Data List comment
Numerous at Belton Hills (2001), also Benfleet/Canvey.

Species text
This purplish brown pill woodlouse occurs naturally on soft rock coastal cliffs, and has recently been recorded inland from synanthropic sites in the southeast. Harding & Sutton (1985) report the species from only two sites in England, one in E. Norfolk and the other in E. Kent, but it had subsequently been found in about a dozen further locations in Kent (Hopkin 1991). It was first recorded in Essex in 1992 at Canvey (Daws 1993) in an overgrown ditch with loose rubbish on a capped landfill site. P.R. Harvey subsequently found it at Benfleet in rough grassland on an old waste site by the creek (1998), at East Canvey in rubble and ruderal habitat (1999) and abundantly over much of Belton Hills in natural habitat consisting of landslip clay forming a south-facing escarpment (Harvey 2001). This site supports a number of important species associated with soft rock cliffs and landslip. Its occurrence in tidal debris at Howlands Marsh in 2004 was the first record for N. Essex, with subsequent records from Hamford Water and the undercliffs at Walton-on-the-Naze (both in 2010). References

Habitats

Recorded management for locations with Eluma purpurascens

Recorded substrate and hydrology for locations with Eluma purpurascens

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