''Meloe brevicollis'' is a

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an oil beetle. It is also known as the short-necked oil beetle. It had been thought that the beetle had been extinct in the UK since the 1940s, due to intensive farming. However, in 2007 a small population was discovered in south of

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

. In 2010, 40 beetles were found on four sites on the

Hebridean The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner Hebrides, Inner a ...

island of

Coll Coll (; gd, Cola; sco, Coll)Mac an Tàilleir (2003) p. 31 is an island located west of the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Coll is known for its sandy beaches, which rise to form large sand dunes, for its corncrakes, and ...

. The beetle is flightless and has parasitic young that depend on solitary nesting bees for survival, raising the question of how it arrived on the island. Jeanne Robinson, the curator of

entomology Entomology () is the science, scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such ...

at Glasgow Museums said: "They are very vulnerable to disturbance and what the Devon and Coll sites have in common is that they have been relatively undisturbed for a long time.... We are hoping there is the potential to do some genetic analysis to see where the population came from." There are records of the beetle being found in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and it is possible the colony had been dispersed from there. In 2014 staff from RSPB Scotland and

Buglife Buglife – The Invertebrate Conservation Trust (usually referred to simply as Buglife) is a UK-based nature conservation charity. Structure Buglife's head office is in Peterborough, England; with additional offices in Scotland, Wales, Norther ...

traveled to Coll to carry out an extensive survey for the beetle. Incredibly they found over 150 beetles and 2 previously unknown sites for the species making Coll the most important site for the beetle in the UK. The species was rediscovered in Pembrokeshire, in Wales in 2020, having remained unrecorded there since 1944.

References

Meloidae Beetles of Europe Beetles described in 1793 Taxa named by Georg Wolfgang Franz Panzer {{Meloidae-stub