Long-horned General

Alex and I spent the day recording quadrats at Portholme Meadow, a regular piece of work that I've been doing for the Open University for about eight years. The site is large and exposed, so amplifies the prevailing weather. Today it was freezing!! I had a thick jumper, fleece and rain jacket and I was still cold thanks to the leaden grey skies and bitter north wind.

I hadn't even taken a camera, so in the evening I checked in the fridge where I found this soldier-fly that Chris found yesterday in Surrey. It's a Long-horned General Stratiomys longicornis. It was a great surprise to find it as it's almost entirely restricted to coastal areas, typically upper saltmarsh, tidal rivers and coastal grazing marsh where brackish pools, ditches and lagoons are present within (e.g. borrow dykes and old salt-winning areas). As a result of its specialised needs, it's a scarce species with the bulk of the British population occurring within the Solent area, Sussex coastal marshes, Thames marshes and East Anglian coast.