Recording scheme news

There have been a number of changes and additions to the list of national recording schemes over the last year or so. The latest updates are:

• The Soldier Beetles, Jewel Beetles and Glow-worms Recording Scheme has been run by Keith Alexander for many years, and published an atlas in 2003. Steph Skipp is now working with Keith, helping to verify records on iRecord and running a scheme Twitter account: @UKCantharidae
• A new recording scheme was launched last year covering leaf-mining flies in family Agromyzidae. Although very small as adult flies, many of these species make distinctive leaf-mines in specific hostplants, and can be recorded from their early stages. Scheme organiser Barry Warrington produces a regular newsletter and can be contacted at agromyzidaeRS@gmail.com or on Twitter via @AgromyzidaeRS
• Another new scheme is devoted to beetles in superfamilies Cleroidea and Lymexyloidea, a group including six beetle families and some very attractive species, of which the metallic green Malachite beetles are perhaps one of the most familiar. Scheme organisers are Wil Heeney and John Lamin: clely@brc.ac.uk or Twitter @CleLyRS
• The Anthomyiid Recording Scheme has been in existence for some time under the expert lead of Michael Ackland, tackling a group of flies that is very under-recorded and has always been regarded as among the more challenging groups. Phil Brighton has now joined Michael and is the main contact point for the study group. He has updated the anthomyiid dataset held at BRC, and started verifying anthomyiid records from iRecord.

A list of all current national recording schemes can be found here, and those on Twitter are listed here.