SUMMARY

The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester & North Merseyside (Lancashire Wildlife Trust) were commissioned by Tanyptera Trust at World Museum Liverpool to undertake targeted surveys to establish the status and distribution of Andrena tarsata in Lancashire, which is much declined nationally and has a provisional GB IUCN Red List status as Near Threatened (Edwards R., Edwards. M and Hargreaves B in prep).

Andrena tarsata is confirmed as extant in Lancashire (with previously recorded sites visited and on sites that showed similar ecology and habitats). The distribution in Lancashire has retracted steadily since the 1970’s and is seemingly absent from some lowland sites with previous records (see maps on pages. All the Lancashire records are from upland / upland fringe sites. New sites in V.C. 59 (South Lancashire) have been discovered, though the species was not recorded from many seemingly suitable sites in V.C. 60 (West Lancashire) and V.C. 64 (Mid-west Yorkshire). All sites in Lancashire surveyed were within the modern administrative boundaries of Lancashire and Greater Manchester. The specifically associated cleptoparasitic bee Nomada robertjeotiana was not found and given that the last record of this species in Lancashire was 45 years ago, is presumed to be extinct or v. rare in Lancashire – or at least in V.C. 59 (where all observations of the host were made in 2025).

Published January 2026