The flame-coloured sun worshiper

It’s summer and it’s sunny. In the garden here in Oxfordshire, as we house-sit for friends, there are insects aplenty. Many are the sort of woodland-edge species you might expect from a mixture of land-use, with a young native tree woodland nearby, neat gardens, open cattle fields and dense hedgerows with the occasional mature tree.

This one, which lands at our outdoor breakfast table, is the Red-Headed Cardinal Beetle, Pyrochroa serraticornis. The name serraticornis suits it perfectly, with its serrated ‘horns’.

The larvae of the Red-Headed Cardinal Beetle live under the bark of trees for two years before emerging. I’m glad this one has.