Few UK bugs are more exotic than the noble chafer beetle, Gnorimus nobilis. It is currently emerging from the larval stage after three years of chewing the decaying wood of old fruit trees. The adult is a shiny metallic green speckled with white and is 2cm long. When the light strikes it, the beetle appears iridescent and can flash copper and gold. It spends the next six weeks of summer feeding on elderflower, hogweed and meadowsweet.
Like so many once-common species, it is the destruction of formerly numerous old orchards, the habitat its larva need to thrive, that have led to its decline. It is mainly found in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, but also recorded in the New Forest, Oxfordshire and Kent, although it may survive elsewhere. It can be confused with the more common rose chafer, which is a similar colour but has smooth wing cases while the noble chafer’s are wrinkled.
It is on the UK’s list of species vulnerable to extinction, and that is one of the reasons that People’s Trust for Endangered Species is trying to stop the destruction of orchards with apple and cherry that are 50 to 80 years old. It also hopes people will report previously unrecorded populations and so help the species survive.
