Worcestershire Record No. 17 November 2004 pp. 25-26

Bob Saville

During a stay in the Brandwood area of Birmingham from 6-8 August 2004 I carried out some work to determine which barklice species occur in the area.

The Psocoptera is a small Order of Insects of which about 100 species have been recorded in Britain. Barklice is the common name for the psocid species that have been recorded out-of-doors (c.60 species). Although little studied by entomologists, barklice are very common and virtually every bush and tree will be home to some species. Shaking tree branches over a beating tray and brushing the insects off tree trunks are the best ways of finding most species.

I spent the majority of the short time I had available in Brandwood End Cemetery and surrounding streets. A few records were made along the Worcester and Birmingham Canal and in King’s Norton Park.

The following table summarises the sampling areas where each of the 18 species recorded were found.

Two of the species were of particular interest.

Epicaecilius pilipennis (Lienhard) 1996

This species is only known from Madeira and Britain. In Britain it was originally found in the Lothians, Scotland (Saville, 1999) where its occurrence was initially considered to be the result of an isolated introduction. More recently it has been found at a handful of locations in England - in Sussex (Alexander, 2002) and Cumbria (Saville, 2004). The finding of the species in Birmingham suggests that its British distribution may be far more widespread than previously thought. Three specimens were found in Brandwood End Cemetery (SP0779), one by shaking the branches of a conifer bush on 6 August 2004, the other two on the trunks of mature oak trees on 8 August 2004.

Peripsocus milleri (Tillyard) 1923

On 8 August 2004 a single female of this species was found on the trunk of a mature oak tree in Jasmin Croft (SP073796), a few metres from Brandwood End Cemetery. The identification of the specimen was confirmed by Charles Lienhard of the Geneva Natural History Museum. This species’ inclusion on the British list is due to two specimens being discovered in the hold of a ship in Liverpool in 1953 (New, 1974). This is consequently the first known outdoor record in Britain.

Barklice are a convenient group to study because there are relatively few species and these are generally not too difficult to identify. Identification keys (in English) for most, but not all, species are available in New (1974). Comprehensive keys for all species (in French) are in Lienhard (1998). Since barklice are little studied by entomologists there is plenty of scope for making further discoveries. If nothing else it would be valuable to find out how widespread Peripsocus milleri is in the area.

The detailed records of the findings including species names, location, 6-figure grid references, species numbers, sampling details and dates have been given to Simon Wood of the Worcestershire Biological Record Centre.