30 Days Wild day 15- Tansy beetles

After reading up on tansy beetles for my day 2 blog, I decided to go in search for them. The tansy bed is tucked away in museum gardens, down in the south west if memory serves correctly. It's not a part of the gardens that I often go into, so I'm not surprised I'd never found them before!

The thing that really took me by surprise was their size. At a centimetre or so long, they're far larger than I expected. They're also incredibly beautiful. Bright emerald green, they were iridescent in the sunshine, glowing yellow and bronze.

Tansy beetles are, as I said in my previous post, endangered in the UK. Reliant on riverside tansy plants and unable to fly other than when newly emerged, they are vulnerable to habitat loss and seasonal flooding. The beetles in Museum Gardens were captive bred and released as part of buglife's conservation efforts.

It's easy to think of urban wildlife as dull, all pigeons and feral Buddleja. But that simply isn't true. One of the rarest species in Yorkshire is easily seen in the middle of York if you go at the right time of year. In my opinion, that's definitely something to celebrate!