Darren Mann

In the latest of our series of interviews with people who work with insects, we talk with Darren Mann, who is Collections Manager at the Museum of Natural History in Oxford, and an expert in dung beetles.

How did you first become interested in insects?

I’ve always been interested, as long as I can remember.  I was one of those kids who had ice-cream tubs full of caterpillars, spiders and woodlice in jars, and tadpoles in buckets. I started the serious study of insects when I was ten. 

My junior school teacher Terry Denman pretty much changed my life. He was a vegetarian, as was I and we veggies were rare back then. More importantly, he had a real passion for natural history and that was apparent in our classroom, we had frogspawn and newts and even a fish tank full of Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches. Cockroaches were an unusual pet in those days, and when I left school he gave me three females and a male. I called him George, and they lived next to my bed – I think I cried with happiness when they had their first babies. 

I was not always the most well-behaved or attentive kid at school. Mr Denman noticed I liked natural history and got me to work by saying ‘you need to write a story, write it about the cockroaches’.  I used to sit by their tank and write about the cockroaches.  Who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t found that avenue for me to put my energies into?!

What is your role at the Museum?

I have been very fortunate: the collections here at the museum are amazing! I spend about half my time working with the collections and doing research on beetles. About 20% of my job is teaching and outreach, giving lectures and talks, for students, visiting school kids and natural history groups. 10-15% is answering enquiries and giving advice, and pest identification “I found this bug in my garden what is it?” The remainder is administration and the paper work side of working with the collections. 

Dung beetles from the museum collections

What is the beetle project you are working on?

In 2016, I was approached by English Nature, the government agency for nature conservation. They were reviewing the conservation of British animals and plants so they could update the conservation status of different species.  If a species had been under threat of extinction, was that still correct today? Had the number of threatened species gone up or down?

The last review for beetles was done in 1992 and there were a lot of errors and it was out of date. One person had tried to do all beetles I one go and that’s an almost impossible task, there are over 4,000 different types in the UK! I was approached to do the Scarce and Threatened Review for dung beetles and chafers because that’s my favourite group.  I declined as I didn’t have time to commit to a lot of extra work. I suggested my mate – Steve Lane, he did the bulk of work and then we spent time chatting and providing data and information. We gathered data from across the UK though amateur naturalists, museum collections and books and articles.  Based on the number of records over the last 100 years, we calculated how the different species had changed and published our work. 

A review of the status of beetles

It was an eye opener for me as there are a few species I thought were still widespread or common, that had drastically declined. However, I didn’t realise they were in trouble because they in were in parts of the UK I rarely visit.  There’s the Cockchafer, everyone knows the May bug, and that’s doing ok. But there’s a second species – the chestnut cockchafer in Scotland, which is not doing so well. I’ve never seen it as I don’t go Cockchafer hunting Scotland. The only one’s being seen were from people light trapping for moths. We discovered more species were declining than were previously believed. Since you can’t be everywhere all the time you don’t notice some of these declines.

We wrote about all the endangered species, and over the last five years Ceri (my wife and dung beetle hunting partner) and myself have taken holidays in search of some our rarest dung beetles. So far we’ve found two species that were thought extinct in Britain, and a few that are critically endangered but hadn’t been seen for 15 years and one for nearly 90 years.

What is your favourite insect?

“A very pretty beetle” Onthophagus nuchicornis

It’s really difficult to choose just one, but I think my favourite is a dung beetle. We gave it the common name Dillwyn’s dung beetle (Onthophagus nuchicornis). As Lewis W. Dillwyn (1778-1855) was one of first people to catch it. It’s very pretty with a dark pattern contrasting against an almost cream background.

Ceri, Steve and myself have spent many years surveying across the UK for this beetle. Worryingly, its numbers have crashed more than any other UK dung beetle and it has gone extinct at over 90% of the sites where it used to live. In most cases we don’t know why this is, but this beetle is a good indicator of a broader decline in species.

Darren and his favourite Longhorn Cattle

If you enjoyed reading about Darren’s work as an entomologist, take a look at other posts about people who work with insects in our ‘People‘ section.

Wonderful Wasps! FULLY BOOKED

Many people are wary of wasps, they like interrupting our picnics, they can look a bit fierce, and some have a sting in the tail, but it’s well worth getting to know this amazingly diverse group of insects. Our next Crunchy on the outside event for young people interested in nature, and insects in particular, is Wonderful Wasps! It’s at the Museum on Wednesday 28 December, 10.30-12.00pm.

We’ll be finding out about some amazing wasp species, looking at the Museum collections to see the fantastic range of different wasps in the UK, and making our own wasp models.

It’s free but booking is essential. To book a place please email hopelearning@oum.ox.ac.uk

We hope your New Year resolution will be to look after our wonderful wasps!

Take a look at our article on fig wasps here: Fabulous Fig Wasps.

Pictures from our ‘Big Draw’ Event

During the October half-term school break a group of aspiring young artists gathered in the Westwood Room for our latest Crunchy on the outside event. We have now put some images from the event on our Photo Gallery for you to enjoy.

During the event, we all had a go at cartooning with Chris (you can have a go too, with this minotaur beetle video), biological drawing with Rodger, and our own art using a range of media. Danielle and Matt also showed us some artistic treasures from the Museum archives.

If you attended, took a drawing home to finish and would like us to include it, please email it to hopelearning@oum.ox.ac.uk.

Of course we’re always interested in seeing artwork and photos of insects by any of our followers. send them in using the same address and we’ll add them to our gallery too!

Hayleigh Jutson

Hayleigh Jutson is the HOPE For the Future Community Officer. She is working with the HOPE project team to develop and deliver a programme for working with community groups across generations and making the Museum as an friendly space for older people. She wants  “museums to be a space for all to enjoy and develop their sense of wonder and imagination, no matter what age they are”.

How did you first become interested in insects?

I have always been interested in insects and all things in Nature – ever since I can remember. I grew up in the South West of England, playing on Dartmoor and the glorious beaches of Devon and Cornwall. I was always out in Nature with my brother, cousins and friends, looking for slowworms, caterpillars, crickets, stick insects – all sorts. That interest and sense of awe and wonder has never left me and I think I’m even more excited about it all now, as an adult.

What does your work on the HOPE project involve?

I run a programme of natural history focussed activities at the museum for older people, called Age of Nature. I also take specimens out to Community groups around Oxfordshire to engage older adult social groups. With community groups, I run projects for older people and intergenerational projects. These often involve grandparents and their grandchildren. I’m working to make the museum an Age-Friendly space so that our older visitors can enjoy it as much as everyone else.

What is your favourite insect?

This is a really hard question, because there are so many to choose from!

I recently fell in love with the Summer Chafer (Amphimallon solstitialis). These clumsy not-so-little coleopterans look a lot like the common Cockchafer, but smaller. From around June – August you’ll see these cute, chunky beetles wobbling around in gardens or inelegantly flying around the tops of trees, bashing into each-other and everything else around them with a great clonk. Around July – August this year, I had around 10 summer chafers per night, come through my house and crashing into my windows, sending themselves into a half-conscious daze. They often land on their backs and immediately try to fly, but because they’re upside down, they end up whizzing around in circles, quite loudly, like they’re taking part in some sort of breakdance battle – it’s quite entertaining!

They’re very cute and gentle creature, and while I was up and down picking them up and taking them back outside, I had the pleasure of seeing them up close and watching their funny little characters and antics. There were so many above my tree, certainly hundreds – they made it sound electrified, with all their zipping and zapping of their wings colliding with each other. Who couldn’t fall in love with this little face?

I’m also quite fond of Stick-Insects. I mentioned that I used to go looking for them when I lived down in Devon and Cornwall when I was young. Stick-Insects are not actually native to this country and often when I tell people I used to play with them in the wild when I was little, they say “you must be mistaken, they couldn’t have been Stick-Insects – you don’t get them in the UK”. The reason I used to find lots of stick insects everywhere when I was younger, is because, three species of stick insects from New Zealand were released in Devon and Cornwall between 100 – 50 years ago. They came here by accident, when plants from New Zealand were shipped to plant nurseries in the South West of England, which were hosting the phasmid’s eggs. Phasmids are insects in the Order Phasmatodea, which Stick-Insects belong to. ‘Phasma’ means phantom in Greek.

Metallic stick insects (Achrioptera manga) are a big hit with Museum visitors of all ages!

Stick-Insects always used to fascinate me with their expert camouflage, which used to give me hours of challenging entertainment, when my brother and cousins and I were playing in the woods, seeing who could spot the most Stick-Insects. I love the way they move too and now that I work here at the museum, we have quite a few live Stick-Insect species that I love to stop and watch as I walk by. We also have some live, large, blue Metallic Stick Insects (Achrioptera manga) that we take out to community groups and school groups for people to see and hold. They are so beautiful and the more I’ve gotten to handle them, the more I’ve seen that they each have their own little personalities! There’s one that often gets a bit grumpy and flares his wings out with a bright red flash of colour. And there’s the dopey one, who is really placid and likes to put his two front legs up and it wiggle side to side, like he’s showing us a little dance, before walking off the edge and falling on the floor. They’re really very sweet and cute.

If you enjoyed Hayleigh’s description of the Summer Chafer, you might like this blog post all about Chafers. We haven’t written about stick insects yet but perhaps we should? Let us know what you think using the Contact Us page.

The Big Draw: Insects!

Our next event for young entomologists, aged 10-14, will be ‘The Big Draw: Insects!‘ on Wednesday 26 October 2022, 10.30am – 12pm at the Museum of Natural History in Oxford.

Timed to coincide with the half-term break for local schools and to link in with other ‘Big Draw’ events in October, The Big Draw: Insects! is your chance to try your hand at drawing insects in three different styles: artistic, scientific and cartooning.

We’ll be based in the newly-refurbished Westwood Room at the museum and will be drawing a range of exciting insects from the museum’s collections. This event is suitable for all abilities from beginners to those who already enjoy drawing frequently.

The Big Draw: Insects! is free but you need to book in advance by emailing us at hopelearning@oum.ox.ac.uk

If you’re interested in cartooning, you might be interested in this post by Chris Jarvis on Drawing a Minotaur Beetle.