Beetles (Coleoptera) are one of the UK’s most diverse groups of insects, with over 4,000 species recorded so far. They range considerably in size, shape, lifestyle and habitat, from the large and charismatic Stag Beetle which develops underground in decaying wood, to the ubiquitous ladybirds eating aphids in your garden, to the hundreds of species of small and cryptic beetles in families like Staphylinidae and Ptilidae which live in soil and leaf litter. Such diversity may seem overwhelming to a beginner, but there’s no reason to be put off. Some of the most abundant and familiar beetle species in Britain are easy to identify, requiring little or no specialist equipment. With a little more experience and some basic equipment, many more species can be identified too.
Beetles are fascinating and beautiful – finding, identifying and recording them is a source of great joy for many people. To encourage more people to experience this joy, and get into identifying and recording beetles, we’ve compiled this webpage with resources and guidance for getting started. We hope it’s useful.
Finding Beetles
The best piece of equipment for finding beetles is already built into your face – your eyes! By simply taking the time to look around you whilst walking in nature, you are likely to see some beetles. The best places to look are on leaves, flowers and deadwood.
That being said, it does really help to have some basic equipment with you if out recording beetles, as it is often necessary to look at beetles up close to identify them.
Hand Lens: Provides magnification in the field, allowing small beetles and important identification features to be examined more closely.
Collecting Tubes: Allow beetles to be safely contained for closer examination, identification or photography.
Pooter: Allows small beetles to be quickly and safely collected from vegetation, beating trays, nets and other surfaces without handling them directly.
A smartphone or camera with high magnification ‘macro’ capabilities is extremely useful for photographing beetles. The in-built smartphone zoom capabilities can also be improved by supplementing your phone camera with a basic ‘clip-on’ macro lens – these can be purchased for little cost online.
If simply looking isn’t yielding enough beetles for you, the next step would be to use some simple equipment – such as nets, trays, and pots. With such kit at the ready, there are four general techniques that are excellent for finding beetles.
Grubbing
A very productive way to find beetles and in the wetter months of the year is to search by hand within leaf litter and look under deadwood logs. We call these ground-based techniques ‘grubbing’. Many species, particularly in families like Carabidae and Staphylinidae, are specialised to live within these microhabitats and won’t be found using nets or by beating. For sampling leaf litter, a useful technique is to sieve leaf litter into a white tray or beating sheet using a generic garden leaf sieve, thus filtering out the large debris and allowing smaller beetles to be spotted.
Sweeping
Above ground, a ‘sweep net’ can be used to find beetles living amongst ground-level vegetation, such as grass and flowers. This is great for finding phytophagous (plant-eating) species, such as leaf beetles and weevils. Sweep nets are built to be sturdy, with a rigid wooden or metal handle and frame, and a thick cotton bag that is resistant to tearing. To sweep for beetles, the best approach is to move the net in a figure-of-eight motion ahead of you whilst walking through an area of vegetation. For a net model to buy, we recommend the Beginner’s Sweep Net or Complete Sweeping Net from Watkins and Doncaster.
Beating
A totally different community of beetles lives in trees to that which lives on grasses and herbaceous plants. Some species in families such as Ptinidae and Buprestidae are almost exclusively found in trees, and never in ground vegetation. To find these species, the best method is to hold a large flat tray beneath leafy branches and then firmly knock the branches with a stick a few times. We call this ‘beating’. Specialist beating trays can be bought, however a basic white tray, such as this model from NHBS, works great too. You can also beat tree branches into a net. For a beating stick, many entomologists just use the handle of a net or a solid stick.
Trapping
In addition to the active sampling methods listed above, some coleopterists also use traps to undertake passive sampling. There are lots of different trapping methods, each attracting different sorts of beetles. Light traps are great for attracting nocturnal species, such as chafers and some ground beetles. Pitfall trapping enables you to catch ground-dwelling species. Dung-baited traps can be used to attract dung beetles, and carrion-baited traps use the same logic to lure in Silphidae. Cross-vane traps are used to collect deadwood-associated groups, such as longhorn beetles.
Curious to find out more about surveying for beetles? Check out the online course below.
Surveying For Beetles online course
Our Surveying for Beetles course introduces key active and passive survey techniques and discusses how to choose the right method for your surveying needs. This course is available through our Beetles discount bundle.
Identifying Beetles
Before you start identifying beetles, it’s essential to learn what the different parts of a beetle’s body are called. Watch the helpful video below to find out:
A suite of useful online and paper resources for identifying beetles are listed below. The first section lists general resources for identifying beetles, accompanied by comments. This is followed by specific resources for identifying some of the most commonly encountered families.
General resources
- Mike’s Insect Keys: https://sites.google.com/view/mikes-insect-keys/mikes-insect-keys/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-beetles-coleoptera – These are great free online keys for identifying UK beetles. There’s one key to identify what family a beetle belongs to, and an extensive series of keys to identify species within the families. Note that the keys are designed to be used with dead specimens and a microscope. Using them to identify species from a standard field photograph is likely to be difficult if not impossible.
- Beetles of Britain and Ireland series by Andrew Duff: https://www.field-studies-council.org/product-category/publications/?fwp_keyword_search=Beetles&fwp_publication_author=Duff – This series of four volumes is the authoritative resource for the identification of British Coleoptera. The keys are excellent, but they will unfortunately set you back several hundred pounds for the full set. As an alternative to purchasing copies, many natural history libraries across the UK will hold copies.
- Docker (2025) ‘Guide to Distinctive Terrestrial Beetles of Britain and Ireland’: https://www.field-studies-council.org/shop/publications/distinctive-terrestrial-beetles-aidgap/ – A useful resource for beginners which covers a selection of distinctive species which can be recognised and identified in the field.
- Royal Entomological Society Out-of-Print Handbooks: https://www.royensoc.co.uk/publications/out-of-print-handbooks/page/4/ – These are increasingly outdated but still can be useful, especially if used alongside other resources (e.g. Mike’s Insect Keys). The morphological information about each species within them is particularly rich. Individual handbooks were written for the different families of British beetles.
Resources for identifying species within UK beetle families are shown below. Families and family groups are listed alphabetically by scientific name. Only those families which were covered in the course are covered here.
Family resources
Cantharidae (Soldier Beetles)
- Mark Gurney’s Soldier Beetle guide: https://www.naturespot.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/Soldier%20beetles%20v1.pdf
- Mike’s Insect Keys – Cantharidae: https://sites.google.com/view/mikes-insect-keys/mikes-insect-keys/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-beetles-coleoptera/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-cantharidae
We also have two upcoming webinars focused on identifying soldier beetles:
Soldier Beetles of the UK Part 1 – Black-winged Species
entoLEARN webinar | 18:00–19:30 | 17th Feb 2027
Learn to identify Britain’s black-winged soldier beetles and distinguish similar species with Dr Steph Skipp (Soldier Beetles and Allies Recording Scheme).
Soldier Beetles of the UK Part 2 – Pale and Variable Species
entoLEARN webinar | 18:00–19:30 | 19th May 2027
Learn to identify Britain’s variable and pale soldier beetles with Dr Steph Skipp (Soldier Beetles and Allies Recording Scheme).
Carabidae (Ground Beetles)
- Mike’s Insect Keys – Carabidae: https://sites.google.com/view/mikes-insect-keys/mikes-insect-keys/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-beetles-coleoptera/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-carabidae
- Luff (2007) ‘The Carabidae (Ground Beetles) of Britain and Ireland’: https://www.nhbs.com/res-handbook-volume-4-part-2-the-carabidae-ground-beetles-of-britain-and-ireland-book
Cerambycidae (Longhorn Beetles)
- Heeney et al. (2018) ‘Longhorn Beetles of Britain’: https://www.field-studies-council.org/shop/publications/longhorn-beetles-guide/
We also have an online course focused on identifying longhorn beetles:
Longhorn Beetles online course
Over 70 longhorn beetle species (Cerambycidae) have been recorded in the UK. Learn to identify 24 of them with Wil Heeney in our Longhorn Beetles of the UK, also available through our Beetles discount bundle.
Chrysomelidae (Leaf Beetles)
- Hubble (2012) ‘Keys to the Adults of Seed and Leaf Beetles of Britain and Ireland’: https://www.field-studies-council.org/shop/publications/seed-and-leaf-beetles-aidgap/
- Mike’s Insect Keys – Chrysomelidae: https://sites.google.com/view/mikes-insect-keys/mikes-insect-keys/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-beetles-coleoptera/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-chrysomelidae
Coccinellidae (Ladybirds)
- Roy et al. (2018) ‘Field Guide to the Ladybirds of Britain and Ireland’: https://www.nhbs.com/field-guide-to-the-ladybirds-of-britain-and-ireland-book
- Majerus et al. (2006) ‘Ladybirds of the British Isles’: https://www.field-studies-council.org/shop/publications/ladybirds-guide/
- Justamond and Williams (2025) ‘Micro Ladybirds of Britain and Ireland’: https://www.field-studies-council.org/shop/publications/micro-ladybirds-of-britain-and-ireland/
- Brown et al. (2012) ‘Ladybird Larvae of the British Isles’: https://www.field-studies-council.org/shop/publications/ladybird-larvae-guide/
Elateridae (Click Beetles)
- Mike’s Insect Keys – Elateridae: https://sites.google.com/view/mikes-insect-keys/mikes-insect-keys/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-beetles-coleoptera/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-elateridae
Nitidulidae (Sap Beetles)
- Mike’s Insect Keys – Nitidulidae: https://sites.google.com/view/mikes-insect-keys/mikes-insect-keys/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-beetles-coleoptera/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-nitidulidae-the-pollen-beetles
(Joss’ note: I find the key to subfamily Meligethinae here rather difficult, so would suggest going for Duff’s key here instead for these)
Scarabaeidae (Scarab Beetles)
- Dung Beetle UK Mapping Project (DUMP) Identification Guide: https://dungbeetlemap.wordpress.com/finding-and-recording-dung-beetles/identification/
- Mike’s Insect Keys – Scarabaeidae: https://sites.google.com/view/mikes-insect-keys/mikes-insect-keys/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-beetles-coleoptera/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-scarabaeidae
We also have an online course focused on identifying chafer beetles:
Chafer Beetles online course
Learn to identify 18 UK chafer beetles, including flower chafers, with coleopterist Wil J. Heeney in our Chafer Beetles of the UK course., also available through our Beetles discount bundle.
Silphidae (Carrion Beetles)
- Lane et al. (2018) ‘The Histeridae, Sphaeritidae and Silphidae of Britain and Ireland’: https://www.field-studies-council.org/shop/publications/histeridae-and-silphidae-atlas/
Staphylinidae (Rove Beetles)
- Duff (2024) ‘Beetles of Britain and Ireland Volume 2: Staphylinidae’: https://www.field-studies-council.org/shop/publications/beetles-of-britain-and-ireland-volume-2-staphylinidae/
- Mike’s Insect Keys – Staphylinidae: https://sites.google.com/view/mikes-insect-keys/mikes-insect-keys/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-beetles-coleoptera/keys-for-the-identification-of-british-staphylinidae
Water Beetles
- Foster and Friday (2012) ‘Keys to Adults of the Water Beetles of Britain and Ireland (Part 1)’: https://www.nhbs.com/res-handbook-volume-4-part-5a-keys-to-adults-of-the-water-beetles-of-britain-and-ireland-part-1-book
- Foster et al. (2014) ‘Keys to Adults of the Water Beetles of Britain and Ireland (Part 2)’: https://www.nhbs.com/res-handbook-volume-4-part-5b-keys-to-adults-of-the-water-beetles-of-britain-and-ireland-part-2-book
Weevils
- Mark Gurney’s Weevil Identification Guides: https://coleoptera.org.uk/curculionoidea/weevil-identification-guides
(Joss’ note: This is my favourite identification resource for any taxonomic group. The guides are fantastic).
Recording Beetles
If you’re new to biological recording, check out our guidance and training:
- Biological Recording: An Introduction: https://biologicalrecording.co.uk/biological-recording-introduction/
- iRecord: An introduction: https://biologicalrecording.co.uk/irecord-intro/
- iRecord 101 online training course: https://courses.biologicalrecording.co.uk/courses/iRecord-101
- Make Your Wildlife Observations Count:
https://biologicalrecording.co.uk/2022/11/01/make-your-wildlife-observations-count/
The collation and verification of beetle records in the UK is co-ordinated by the beetle recording schemes. These are volunteer-run organisations in which specialists volunteer their time to curate and verify incoming records for particular beetles families. You can find more information and guidance about recording beetles on the UK Beetle Recording website. The Coleopterists Society of Britain and Ireland (ColSoc) is also a valuable resource for new beetle recorders, providing identification resources, recording guidance and access to a community of experienced coleopterists.
The vast majority of beetle recording schemes favour submission of records via iRecord. You can submit your records through any form on the website or app, but if you are exclusively recording beetles you may wish to use:
- The List of beetles (for a site) iRecord form is great for submitting lists of beetles, regardless of which family the species beong to.
- The Ladybirds iRecord form was set up by the UK Ladybird Survey for any records of ladybirds.
- The Glow-worm iRecord form is the recording form for the UK Glow worm Survey.
Records submitted via iNaturalist will also feed into iRecord provided they meet various criteria. Many recording scheme organisers also accept spreadsheets of records submitted directly to the recording scheme organiser via email.
The verification of beetle records in the UK currently relies on a very small number of volunteers – many of whom are also busy full-time entomologists with other commitments. As such, records for many groups of beetles may take some time to be verified. There are some families where verification is quite quick – the UK Ladybird Survey is particularly active, for example – but there are also many families where records remain unreviewed for years. The key takeaway message here is to not be put off if your records are not being verified – it’s almost certainly not a problem with your records, and more likely just the lack of verifier manpower available.
If you are after second opinions on your beetle identifications for more obscure groups which are not actively verified on iRecord, faster places to get help are the Beetles of Britain and Ireland Facebook page, and iNaturalist.
Expand Your Beetle Knowledge
Over the years, we have organised a number of entoLIVE webinars about beetle research, recording and conservation. All content from these past webinars – the recordings, Q&A and further info resources – can be accessed for free. Check out the links below.
Changes in the UK Stag Beetle Population: Evidence from Citizen Science and Museum Records
David Wembridge (People’s Trust for Endangered Species) shares new research revealing trends of population change in UK Stag Beetles.
Mapping the Beetle Tree of Life
Dr Beulah Garner (Natural History Museum) discusses new efforts to comprehensively map the phylogeny of 400,000 beetle species worldwide.
Getting to Know Weevils
Mark Gurney (UK Weevil Recording Scheme) provides an introduction to this adorable, fascinating and diverse group of beetles in the UK.
Glowing, Glowing, Gone? The Plight of the Glow-worm in Essex
Dr Tim Gardiner discusses his research into the decline of one of Britain’s most iconic beetles.
Water Beetles: Recording & Atlases of Britain and Ireland
Prof Garth Foster (Balfour-Browne Club) explains the history (and future) of recording water beetles in Britain and Ireland.
The Downland and Dung Beetle Project: The Story of Onthophagus joannae
Sally-Ann Spence discusses the accidental restoration of a large area of downland due to a personal obsession to conserve one particular species of dung beetle.
Celebrating Ladybirds: Developing Our Knowledge Through Citizen Science
Prof Helen Roy (UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology) explains how our understanding of UK ladybirds is largely due to an army of citizen scientists.
Interested in our biological recording and training projects? Subscribe to our free newsletter to receive updates about new courses and learning opportunities, with exclusive subscriber discounts on selected training courses.
Discounted Beetle Courses
At the Biological Recording Company, we develop online training courses about various biodiversity and ecology topics. This includes some courses on beetles! So far we’ve got two courses focused on the identification for Longhorn Beetles of the UK and Chafer Beetles of the UK, one course focused on surveying methods (Surveying for Beetles) and the collated presentations and content from our Beetle Research and Conservation Virtual Symposium. You can purchase access to all of this content in one go with our discounted Beetles Bundle (£57.50 worth of content for £40!), or pay for the constituent courses separately. Links below.
