I've been rattling through the 2020 beetle backlog over the last couple of weeks. It's been fairly productive and I'm certainly much better, and more importantly quicker, at putting a name to things and also dissecting and carding those individuals that need further inquiry and study.
I also did a bit of gardening yesterday and couldn't resist a quick bit of sieving of the grass cutting piles, especially as they were getting a bit of warmth from the weak Autumn sunshine. It was fairly quiet on the beetle front but there were lots of small flies in the samples, which I studiously ignored. There were a few staphs though, including this species which was entirely new to me.
Quedius humeralis. It's one of the Raphirus subgenus with big eyes and an emarginated labrum. It also has quite obvious paler edges to the elytra. The Lott and Anderson guide has this species' habitat down as 'uncertain'. Well, rotting autumnal vegetation is one habitat as I can now attest 😀
It can be separated from the very similar Q. nemoralis by the more elongated median lobe of the aedeagus.
Another new staph that I identified this week, but that had come from a garden suction sampling session back in April was the paederine Sunius propinquus. It was the first of this genus I'd found and is the most readily encountered of the 3 UK species.
I also found this 2.7mm staph that initially threw me as being something new but I think it's just a very dark Anthobium atrocephalum. These do seem to be quite variable colour-wise. Not sure if there is an age or season dimension to this.
So the plan is to finish the remaining beetles over the next few weeks and hopefully then I can produce some sort of summary for the year. Despite the wider craziness it has been my most interesting and productive beetling year by a country mile. And interestingly, the lion's share of these have come from the garden with little effort, just a variety of techniques. Something to keep going for 2021 I think.
The post title comes from one Curtis James Jackson III . Can't quite believe that this is almost 18 years old.
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