UK Nature and Environment

There’s a tiger burning brightly in front of me – not in the forests of the night, but on a Derbyshire moor, among the heather and bilberry, and in warm sunshine. It isn’t orange and black, but an iridescent green, and I need to hunker down to reach its level.

The green tiger beetle is widespread in Britain, and at least to the ants and caterpillars that it predates, it is every bit as threatening as the big cat immortalised by William Blake. Magnified, its fearful symmetry becomes more apparent, its mouth parts ferocious, the dandyish purple of its elegant legs more richly obvious.

One other thing I appreciate about the green tiger beetle is how easily it’s identified. There are thousands of beetle species in Britain, and they’re not always this easy to tease apart. It makes the green tiger especially exciting to kids, a secure toehold in the shifting complexity of nature. And it’s that question, of inspiring the next generation to explore the marvels around them, that’s on my mind.