A species of beetle has been rediscovered after a gap of 86 years.

The great silver water beetle was found in a trap at the Great Fen in Cambridgeshire by a researcher surveying for newts.

The last record of the species in the area was at Wicken Fen in 1938, according to monitoring and research officer Henry Stanier.

“I was staring down at a much bigger beetle nearly four centimetres in size and unlike the others, which are black and yellow, this was jet black and looking very different… that’s when we got very excited,” he said.