I've found a rare insect, is there someone I should let know?

[startouchedtrinity]

Dd1 and I have identified a crane fly in our garden which is apparently quite rare in this country. Is there a website I can register this on? I know insects are used to study climate change and things like that.

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where are you?

Do you have a zoo near you? They might know who to inform.

english nature (now inexplicably called natural england) would be pretty interested as they run all sorts of survey's on this sort of things here

don't know where that comma came from!

Oooh thank you, so many replies! I'm in Essex, not far from the Cambridgeshire border. I will try English Nature but there might be one of the University colleges in Cambridge that wou7ld like to know as well. Sadly it doesn't have an English name, just avery long latin one, so dd1 has called it the Big Stripey Cranefly - if you ever see it in abook you'll know she named it!

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Ooh thanks. Am quite excited.

were they interested?

Haven't heard yet!

There's also the county recorder system - you'll want the Diptera recorder for a cranefly. I tried to find a list of county Diptera recorders but couldn't, but if you search Diptera recorder you may find the right person.