First new beetles of the decade

I read several other people's natural history blogs as and when they post. Unfortunately it does seem to be a bit of a dying art with many folk's effort fading quickly after an initial burst of enthusiasm. However, there are 3 or 4 favourites that either amaze me by their astounding natural history knowledge or their ability to craft a thoughtful musing in lovely prose. Many manage to combine both.

Whilst reading Seth Gibson's latest shenanigans from the Isle of Skye I was reminded of the fact that I have some glaring gaps in my beetle list. Seth found his first beetle of the year in the form of Euophryum confine, an introduced New Zealand weevil that is pretty much ubiquitous down south in well rotted wood. His was new for the Hebrides. So a good record.

Funny thing was I hadn't seen one. Having started my beetle odyssey with carabids, the other families came thick and fast shortly after as I was turning up lots of things I wanted to identify. This means that despite having seen and identified fast approaching 500 species of beetle the list contains some gaps of species that are really common and most importantly really easy to identify, my list having been amassed with whatever crossed my path through my newbie beetling techniques.

Euophryum confine being a case in point. So there was only one thing for it...

Lunchtime at work on Friday I had one goal. It took me until my second log to turn up what looked like black grains of rice...

Euophryum confine confirmed. An easy start to 2020 beetling.

Whilst prodding about in dead wood a small staph darted for cover. I potted it and on examination it turned out to be Sepedophilus littoreus. A second new beetle for the year!