Anthicus antherinus (Linnaeus, 1760)

This is a very widely distributed Palaearctic species, the nominate subspecies occurs throughout the region including Lebanon, Iran and Israel, it is widespread across Europe north to the UK and central provinces of Fennoscandia and is often the most common member of the genus, it is a very variable species and several aberrations have been named, and there is a further subspecies A. a. syriae Pic, 1892 recorded from France, North Africa and Afghanistan. In the UK it is locally common in southeast and central England as far north as Nottingham, and very local and rare in the West Country and South Wales. It is generally a lowland species but often occurs at lower mountain altitudes and has been recorded up to 2000 m in Iran.  Adults occur year-round, they overwinter among leaf-litter or under debris and are active over a long season from March until the autumn, peaking in abundance from April until June and again during August and September. Adults leave their winter quarters in early spring and disperse by flight, sometimes swarming around bushes etc and often appearing on flowers, they are eurytopic and prefer mostly open and dry habitats such as grassland, hedgerows and wooded margins but they often appear in wetland margins, dunes and sea shores and are frequent in disturbed urban and agricultural habitats. Reproduction occurs mainly in the spring after dispersal but mating pairs are common into early summer, larvae are saprophagous; they develop among decaying plant material and pupate during the summer. Adults are polyphagous, they will often be seen on umbel flowers etc feeding on pollen and nectar but also consume sap from plant wounds, honeydew, small insects and their early stages as well as dead insect larvae. Adults are most frequently encountered by sweeping flowers or low herbaceous vegetation but they occur regularly when sieving leaf-litter and compost and they have been recorded from light and flight-interception traps.