Although a
bit of a novice at this, I am getting really fascinated with the family of
beetles known as Silphidae – their common names often being Sexton beetles,
burying beetles or carrion beetles.
There are 21
species in the UK and the name “Sexton” literally means a person who looks
after a church and churchyard, typically acting as bell-ringer and gravedigger.
Well, they do the last bit anyway!
Sexton
beetles have an exceptionally good sense of smell and can smell a carcass up to
a mile away.
I have recently
been setting pitfall traps around something “smelly”. A pitfall trap is simply
a plastic beaker or pot sunk into the ground, which the beetles then hopefully stumble into and cannot climb
out of because of the slippery sides. The smelly thing can be anything allowed
to go off somewhat, such as chicken giblets, fish or roadkill!
The offering
can be something quite small, such as a mouse, which brings me onto something
else of interest. Many sexton beetles carry tiny mites which
apparently do them little or no harm. These mites use the Sexton beetles to
hitch a lift to these dead food sources.
When both
the beetle and mites arrive at a given body, the mites do not eat the dead body,
but instead eat fly eggs and larva of anything that is not a carrion beetle.
They help to clean the carcass of the potential competitors, so that the Sexton
beetle's larva can have the body largely to themselves. That could be important
if the food source is no bigger than a mouse!
Here are a
few photos showing some of the beetles that I have discovered.
 |
| Black Sexton beetle - Nicrophorus humator - showing a number of mites hitching a lift |
 |
Sexton beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides |
 |
Oiceoptoma thoracicum - these beetles can sometimes be found sitting onStinkhorn fungus, attracted by the smell |
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