Rare beetle that oozes an oily fluid from its KNEES when attacked is found breeding in Wales after nearly 60 years

Natural Resources Wales confirmed that this year's survey of Castlemartin Range turned up larvae spread across a small part of the Pembrokeshire site, pointing to a larger cohort of hatchlings having made it through — the first evidence of breeding in Wales in nearly six decades. The find comes after three years of searching and growing alarm following surveys in 2022 and 2025 that yielded only dead adults.

The odds of a larva reaching adulthood are vanishingly small: roughly one in 10,000 makes it.

Habitat loss pushed the species to the edge of extinction, and it disappeared from UK records for nearly six decades after 1948, until it was rediscovered in Devon in 2006.

Castlemartin Range is the only location in Wales where the beetle has ever been recorded, and it carries vulnerable status on the IUCN Red List.