This page is the damp ground round a pile of old logs. Move your pointer and your bug will scuttle, trundle or burrow after you. Choose a different bug at the bottom, and tap the notes to open them.
Macclesfield right now checking the sky…
The male's huge jaws are for wrestling other males. He tries to lift his rival and tip him over.
For all their size, the male's jaws give only a weak nip. The female's small ones are stronger.
The fat white larva lives in rotting wood underground for up to six years before it becomes a beetle.
After all that, the adult lives for only a few weeks in early summer and hardly eats.
On warm evenings males fly in search of females, upright and clumsy, with a loud hum.
Tidying away dead wood has made it scarce. It is protected by law.
Meet them all
Lucanus cervus
Britain's biggest beetle: shiny black and chestnut, the male with enormous antler-like jaws.
Carabus violaceus
A long-legged black beetle with a violet or purple sheen round the edges of its body.
Armadillidium vulgare
A domed, slate-grey woodlouse with fourteen legs that can roll itself into a perfect ball.
Lithobius forficatus
A flat, shiny, chestnut-brown animal with fifteen pairs of legs and long antennae, that runs very fast.
Tachypodoiulus niger
A glossy black, tube-shaped animal with about a hundred white legs that ripple along its sides.
Lumbricus terrestris
A long, pinkish-brown worm, darker at the head end, with a paler band called a saddle.
Through the year
Most of these are about all year, hidden in the damp. The green months are when they are easiest to find. The bug following you is shown in red.
Lend a hand
Stack a few logs in a shady corner and leave them to rot. Part-bury the bottom ones for stag beetles.
Rake fallen leaves under a hedge, not into a bin. Everything on this page lives in them.
A tree stump left in the ground feeds beetle grubs for years.
A heap is warm, damp and full of food: worms, woodlice and centipedes move in by themselves.
Turn a log gently, have a look, and roll it back just as it was so the damp is not lost.
Every time soil is turned over, worm burrows are broken. A layer of compost on top lets the worms do the digging.
British bugs: 4 more places
Real photos of the bugs on this page. Tap one to see it bigger.
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons and are used under free licences. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews. Open a photo to see who took it.
Dead wood and fallen leaves would pile up for ever without these animals. They chew it, tunnel through it and turn it back into soil.
Back to the topPond and stream bugs live on their own page: choosing one takes you there.
Bugs from other parts of the world live on their own pages: choose another.