They are known as longhorn beetles because of their long antennae. Most species are associated with dead wood, where the larvae develop, and a couple of species use the stems of herbaceous plants. However, the longhorn I’ve been seeing lots of is called the fairy-ring longhorn Pseudovadonia livida and is a little unusual as it is associated with the fairy-ring fungi Marasmius oreades that's found in grasslands.

The beetles are quite small, 5-9mm long (not including antennae), and the wing cases are a tan/brown colour.  The field I have been exploring has a lot of fairy-rings, so many that you can even spot them in aerial photos, and as a result there is a very healthy population of these beetles. I had wondered if the wet winter would knock back their numbers as they overwinter in the soil and the field was waterlogged for months. However last weekend there was a large emergence so it is good to see they can cope with the vagaries of the British weather!

The longhorn beetles are a lovely group and come in a variety of sizes and many are very attractively patterned, which makes them a good family to start with if you want to learn to identify a few beetles. Some of the quite distinctive ones to look out for that I’ve come across feeding on hogweed or ox-eye daisies are  the wasp beetle Clytus arietis (6-15mm), the black and yellow longhorn Rutpela maculata (13-20mm) and the black-striped longhorn Stenurella melanura (6-10mm).