Introduction

Introduction page

About 5,000 Puritan tiger beetles are left on the planet, about 4,500 of them in Maryland, said Glenn Therres, a biologist who heads the endangered-species program at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The beetle is found only in Calvert, along the Sassafras River between Kent and Cecil counties and along the Connecticut River in New England. The population was as high as 11,000 in the 1980s, Therres said, and the decrease is largely due to the loss of habitat.