Species Account for Myrmica lobicornis

Species text
Although S. P. Hoy (in Edwards 1998) suggests that the shortage of recent records in Britain is probably the result of low recording effort, particularly in upland northern England and Scotland this cannot be said for our own county and the species would seem to warrant an urgent revision of its present conservation status, at least in southern and south-eastern England. It is certainly rare in Kent with no recent records (Allen 1989) and Essex and the species is only known in Dorset from a single colony (Mahon & Pearman 1993). There is evidence that it is a good indicator species of unimproved habitat and as such may have undergone dramatic decline in southern England. In Essex this distinctive species is very rare in the county and restricted to unimproved grassland sites with recent records for only a few localities. In northern Europe the species occurs on lowland heath and in open woodland and although widely distributed it is not abundant and occurs in isolated single queen colonies nesting in peat or under stones, and is commonly found as single foraging workers (Collingwood 1979). S.P. Hoy in Edwards (1998) states that the species tends to occur in fairly undisturbed natural and semi-natural habitats such as upland moorland, lowland heath, rough grassland and open woodland. All the Essex localities are unimproved grasslands in some cases very small remnants. All the sites are vulnerable to inappropriate management, neglect and scrub invasion. References

Habitats

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