Opatrum sabulosum (Linnaeus, 1758)

This widespread and often abundant species occurs throughout the Palaearctic region except for the far north, extending east into northwest China and into the mountains and foothills of central Asia; in many parts of Europe it is the most common member of the family and in some eastern parts of its range it is a sporadic agricultural pest and may occur in great abundance. In the U.K. it is almost entirely coastal, occurring from Cumbria to Norfolk, including Anglesey and the Isle of Wight, with the majority of records from the southwest. Here the typical habitat is open and sunny situations with patchy vegetation on sandy soils which dry out quickly; damp soils and areas prone to water logging are avoided. The adults occur from March to June or July and are generally nocturnal although in hot weather they may be active, moving quite rapidly among soil and litter, and they are flightless, lacking hind wings. They live for two or three years and become active early in the year, as soon as the temperature rises or, in bad years as soon as any snow has melted, and begin feeding on emergent vegetation although both larvae and adults can also consume leaf litter and dead stems etc. if necessary. This feeding phase lasts for a few weeks before they begin mating in April. Oviposition begins in late April and continues into early June; females lay batches of up to ten eggs in the soil between two and five centimetres deep, and each will lay up to a hundred in a season. Larvae emerge within three weeks, depending on temperature, and begin feeding on the aerial parts of young plants; cotyledons and stems and so they destroy seedlings at this stage, larger larvae also feed on seeds, roots and tubers, and their presence may be detected, with experience, by areas of withered plants or bare sand. The larvae feed voraciously and are fully grown within eight to ten weeks. Pupation begins towards the end of June in a cell some three to six centimetres underground and the adults eclose after a week or two. These new generation adults will go on to overwinter in the soil at depths up to twenty centimetres but in more favourable continental areas there may be a second generation from the earliest summer adults, these second generation adults will remain in the pupal cells until the spring. In some continental areas, but perhaps especially in the dry agricultural steppe zone of southern Asia, they can occur in huge numbers and become a serious pests of a wide range of crops e.g. vines, cereals, sunflowers and beets etc., larvae may destroy the developing seedlings of almost any crop while both larvae and adults feed on both aerial and subterranean parts. The species is most harmful in mild years when the small larvae appear just as new seedlings are developing.