A PLEISTOCENE COLEOPTEROUS FAUNA WITH ARCTIC AFFINITIES FROM FLADBURY, WORCESTERSHIRE

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A fauna of fossil beetles has been obtained from a sample of peat-like material from the base of No.2 Terrace of the river Avon at Fladbury, Worcestershire. Most of the species are still living today, though many are not now found in Britain. Prom the present-day requirements of the species it has been possible to deduce much of the ecology and climate at the time of deposition of the 'peat' (radio-carbon date 38,000 years B.P.). The ‘peat’ accumulated in a pool of standing water on the flood-plain of the river, surrounded by patches of sedges and willow. Away from the pool the country was barren and sandy with a thin cover of vegetation. The modern geographical distributions of the species shows that the largest number now occur together in arctic Scandinavia and northern Russia. Equation of the climate of northern Europe today with that of Fladbury in glacial times would, however, be misleading on account of the great difference in latitude. To avoid this difficulty the ranges of the carabid ground beetles in the mountains of Scandinavia have been tabulated according to their known occurrence in the floral zones that indicate deterioration of climate with increase in altitude. The maximum overlap of these ranges was in the lower alpine and birch zones, suggesting sub-arctic conditions at Fladbury. The Fladbury fauna is shown to resemble, to a remarkable degree, the approximately contemporaneous insect fauna from Upton Warren, Worcestershire, and also the so-called interglacial insect faunas from Sweden.

This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit: