Website forms and recording
and gardens. In Essex D. erythrina is very rare and I have been happy to assume that records from
houses and gardens are D. crocata. Where I have checked voucher specimens they have always
been this species. Interestingly records supported by photographs from the USA and Canada are
even more certain to be correct since D. crocata is the only species established in those countries
(Platnick 2004).
One recorder confused the Lily Beetle with the somewhat similar Cardinal Beetle. I was able to
pick this up because of the unusual location given for the Lily Beetle (a country park instead of on
lily plants in a garden) and Illis was confirmed when a picture was sent (modern digital photography
is an increasingly impressive and useful format). Often pictures are submitted that enable records
to be confirmed, but occasionally the information given leads to doubt over the correct identification.
Results
The results for each species lrave varied widely. A summary, with the approximate date the form
was introduced and the responses received are summarised in the table overleaf.
The response varies widely from species to species, and the most successful by far has been the
Lily Beetle, with over 250 responses to date this year and wide coverage way beyond Essex (sec
Fig. 1). The Lily Beetle became established inBritain in the early 1940s and initially spread slowly
across south-east England, but which then underwent a massive extension in range during the
1980s and 1990s and as of March 2003 was recorded from 265 10km squares and 46 vice-counties
in England and Wales (Koryszko 2004). Our records since the form was made available on the
website in December 2003 currently cover 149 10 km squares and present a reasonably
comprehensive picture of the current British distribution of this species (Harvey 2004). Only 43 of
the Lily Beetle forms have originated from Essex, with the remainder coming from all over the
country and even 9 each from the USA and Canada! This seems typical, with only a small percentage
of the records for any of the species being from Essex.
Fig. 1. Lily beetle records received this year
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 21 (2004)
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