.…a blog written and updated by Buglife Senior Conservation Officer, Laura Larkin, from an article originally published in The Buzz Winter 2025
Lundy Island sits about 18km off of the coast of North Devon, within the Bristol Channel and is home to the fairly unassuming plant, Lundy Cabbage (Coincya wrightii); an endemic to the island, found nowhere else in the world. Lundy Cabbage is also unique in the UK as it is the only endemic plant known to support an endemic invertebrate – the Lundy Cabbage Flea Beetle.
The Lundy Cabbage Flea Beetle (Psylliodes luridipennis) is approximately 3.5mm in length, and is metallic bronze in colour. It is Nationally Rare, has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List and is a global conservation priority. Parts of Lundy have also been designated by Buglife as an Important Invertebrate Area, just for the Lundy Cabbage Flea Beetle.
Lundy Cabbage Flea Beetles, as the name might suggest, only live on Lundy Cabbage. The beetle larvae mine the stems, roots and leaves and the adults feed on the leaves and lay their eggs in the soil at the base of the plants. The beetles are entirely reliant on the Lundy Cabbage to be able to continue existing.
To add an extra complication, Lundy Cabbage only grows in a 2.5km stretch on the eastern side of Lundy, where it is sheltered from the worst of the winds from the Atlantic. It is an annual plant and numbers can vary wildly from year to year. Each year, a Lundy Cabbage count is undertaken, currently by members of Lundy Field Society and previously by Roger Key; in 1978 only 324 flowering plants were recorded, whereas in 2017 there were 6700. The plant is very palatable to various island inhabitants including goats, sheep, deer and rabbits, and its distribution is heavily dictated by the presence or absence of these creatures. Lundy Cabbage primarily grows on the steep inaccessible slopes of the east of the island, but can also be found around Landing Beach and Milcombe, close to where the ferry comes in. These areas are generally inaccessible or not frequently visited by the island goats, who seem to be one of the biggest threats to Lundy Cabbage. Historically, invasive Rhododendron has also threatened populations of the cabbage, but, thanks to sustained efforts by the island team, this threat has now been largely eradicated.
Although annual surveys have been undertaken on the cabbage, only very limited surveys have previously been undertaken on the Lundy Cabbage Flea Beetle. Because of its status as a globally Critically Endangered endemic invertebrate, it is vital for us to learn more about it and its distribution on the island and see whether there is any work that can be done to help support this very rare beetle.
In 2024, and again in 2025, Buglife visited Lundy and undertook surveys for the beetle. It has always been previously assumed that the beetles would be found wherever the cabbage was; we wanted to learn more about whether this was true. In 2024 we undertook surveys to determine the distribution of the beetle on the island, and managed to find it in places it had been located previously towards the southern end of the island. However, it was impossible to survey large areas because the plants were growing on vertical cliffs and could not be easily, or safely, reached.
In 2025 we returned to try to learn more about the abundance and distribution of the beetle within this southern hotspot. We found there to be a couple of distinct areas with beetles, but not many individuals were found on plants outside of these areas. They are however, very tricky to find!
Thanks to support from the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund we are able to continue our work in 2026. We will undertake further surveys of the beetle in the southern hotspot and will work with the Lundy Island Company and the National Trust to investigate ways in which we might be able to increase the amount of Lundy Cabbage plants available to the beetles, and see whether we can also better link the discrete patches of cabbage to create more beetle habitat. We will also produce some interpretation materials so that visitors to the island are more aware of this incredibly special species.
If you are interested in learning more about the Lundy Cabbage Flea Beetle, please see the report from our first year of surveys which can be found on the Lundy Cabbage Flea Beetle project page.