Small, green and mighty, the Ohlone tiger beetle — like many other insects — is in danger of extinction. This endemic species, only found in one place, has called Santa Cruz County its home since the Pleistocene era, when the woolly mammoths roamed the Earth. 

The Ohlone tiger beetle, or Cicindela ohlone, is a rare species of the larger cicindelidae family. According to the Sierra Club, a leading national environmental rights organization, several groups of hundreds of Ohlone tiger beetles reside in only five small patches of land near nutrient-rich loam soil around the county. Two of these patches are located on the UC Santa Cruz campus near the Arboretum and the Marshall Field complex.

Since 2001, unnatural deaths due to human-made development have pushed these beetles into the “federally endangered” classification, defined by the Endangered Species Act as “any species which is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.”

“There has been this huge decline in insect diversity, even in the past few decades. This is symptomatic of broader issues and impacts that we’re having,” said Alex Jones, the UCSC Campus National Reserve manager. “So to me, it’s like a warning.” 

The UCSC Natural Reserve website states that the Ohlone tiger beetle is most active between January and May, during which females lay one egg at a time in underground burrows that range up to eight centimeters deep. Larvae go through three stages of development, becoming adults 15 to 23 weeks after hatching and living for about two years. 

These instar — or times between molting — developmental stages are as follows:

  • First Instar: Three to five weeks long.
  • Second Instar: Five to ten weeks long.
  • Third Instar: Seven to eight weeks long, concluding when the larvae plugs its burrow until it emerges as an adult the following winter.

Once they have reached adulthood, the main predators of general tiger beetles are lizards, birds and other insects. However, the Ohlone tiger beetle is rare enough that research on its unique predators has not been conducted.

Entomologists across Santa Cruz, through studying the relationships between humans and insects, have found that the general public favors supporting endangered species they consider cute. Dubbed the “cuteness bias,” this directly harms insect conservation efforts. 

“It’s hard with insects to get the same amount of attention or urgency,” said Clara Racine, the president and founder of UCSC’s Bug Club.

According to Racine and an article by MancUnion, a campus newspaper at the University of Manchester, amphibians, fish, insects and mollusks are the groups with the highest number of threatened species due to their smaller populations and lower tolerability levels to environmental changes. However, the vast majority of conservation efforts go toward endangered mammals. 

How to Help: Biking Slow and Looking Low

To the Ohlone tiger beetle’s detriment, UCSC students often cycle quickly through bike trails on their way to class. These bike trails are known as “bare ground,” areas where tiger beetles burrow, hunt and mate, and are often one of the few places on Earth where adult beetles live out their lifespans. Slowing down to 5-8 mph allows the beetle to flutter away, avoiding being crushed.

Similarly, habitat loss from rampant development in Santa Cruz has dramatically decreased the amount of bare ground in the county. UCSC began construction on Ohlone tiger beetle territory in 2005, with the development of the Ranch View Terrace employee housing near the Arboretum.

In June 2026, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a report outlining a potential recovery plan for the Ohlone tiger beetle. It states that the most important actions are to better manage the habitats they are already found in, and potentially create more patches of bare grassland. UC Santa Cruz along with The Conservation Fund has recently acquired parts of the Ohlone tiger beetles’ territory, allowing them to work on this species preservation. Alex Jones also described several ways the general population can support the Ohlone Tiger Beetle.

“Support your public lands, support your agencies doing active land management, [and]  advocate for those types of legislation that makes prescribed burning more feasible,” Jones said.

Although the direct impacts of this species’ extinction on our environment is unclear, Jones encourages appreciation of the species as a valuable part of its ecosystem, beyond the ecosystem’s monetary value.

“They’re pretty limited in distribution and they’re pretty small, so they’re probably not a huge part of anything’s diet. And they’re probably not controlling some economically important pest or something,” Jones said, “but for me, they’re a representation of the natural diversity that’s out there, and a really cool organism that has [an] intrinsic right to have its own existence.”