SEXTON BEETLE

The Latin name for the Sexton is Nicrophorus vespillo.

This beetle is found throughout Britain, except the far north, though it is rarely very common.

This is a distinctive, medium-sized beetle with a body length of about 2cm. The wing-cases are shiny black, marked with orange-red transverse bands. They also have a fringe of yellow hair on the front margin of the thorax.

The adults gather at corpses of small creatures, which they bury. They do this by scraping away the soil beneath it, or, if the ground is too hard, they move it to a more suitable place by getting underneath it, turning on their backs, grasping it with their jaws, and pushing. The eggs are then laid into chambers, stocked with carrion, and the larvae eventually move to the corpse as they grow.