A beetle not seen since the 1960s was rediscovered on former California Governor Jerry Brown's ranch

A beetle species which was recently rediscovered — after having gone 55 years without being seen by scientists  — is being named after former California Governor Jerry Brown. 

That’s because this rediscovery didn’t occur just anywhere: it happened at Brown’s rural Colusa County ranch. The retired politician frequently hosts field scientists at his property, inviting them to do environmental research. 

“It's a great place for scientists to come do their work in a very special way,” Brown told NPR after the beetle was rediscovered. “I see this as getting familiar and knowledgeable with your own surroundings.”

UC Berkeley entomologist Kipling Will was one of the researchers who seized the opportunity to explore Brown’s ranch. Will has traveled across the state to study carabid beetles, or ground beetles, which are predatory insects that live in soil.  

In 2021, while collecting samples along a freshwater creek on Brown’s ranch, Will noticed a small brown beetle that looked unlike others he was familiar with: Its prothorax, which is the segment of the insect that sits behind its head, was unusually large. After consulting peers and searching through collections, he realized the species had not been seen by scientists since the 1960s.

And though the beetle had been recorded by scientists as early as the 1920s, it hadn’t been named, according to the university. So Will and his team decided to pay homage to Brown and his wife, Anne, by naming it Bembidion brownorum. 

Drawers containing prepared specimens of carabid beetles that Kipling Will collected on Jerry Brown’s ranch.Photo courtesy Kipling Will

Gov. Jerry Brown rides around his ranch with his dog, Colusa, in rural Colusa County in December 2018.Andrew Nixon / Capital Public Radio

“Well, it feels great,” Brown said of the honor. “Never happened before.”

The Smithsonian estimates that nearly 900,000 species of living insects have been identified and described by scientists, but many more remain unidentified. Some studies estimate that between 2 and 30 million species of insects are alive today.

Many of those unidentified insects exist in California, too, which is why Will said that this research is important. 

“Nature's like this big puzzle with millions of pieces, and each one of those little pieces tells us a little bit more and gives us a little sharper image of the patterns that are out there,” he told NPR.

Unfortunately for the Bembidion brownorum, Will said its population is likely declining, in part due to the way humans have changed the landscape of California. Because of where the specimen was collected, scientists believe that “it’s likely that the beetle lives near the edges of bodies of water that periodically flood and then evaporate,” the university said.

“We call it an unlucky beetle. It's just unlucky that its life history coincides with some aspect of the habitat that we're probably altering. And so they take the hit,” Will said.

According to UC Berkeley, specimens of the Bembidion brownorum beetle had previously been found in the Central Valley and Los Angeles Basin. Both areas have gone through considerable environmental changes over the last 100 years.