I've not left the house much of late due to reduced daylight, a busy work schedule and a general lethargy. So yesterday, I decided I needed a proverbial kick up the backside and I decided to get outside and spend my lunch break standing in a local flooded field next to a river having a rummage through a few tussocks of deschampsia for wintering beetles.
There was the usual assortment of Pterostichus, Amara and Bembidions with a smattering of staphs and other bits and bobs.
This 10.5mm carabid was the only one of its kind and I immediately jumped into the Harpalus key. I was then getting very confused as it keyed to Harpalus latus which I knew it wasn't. A closer look and I could see a light smattering of pubescence on the outer edges of the right hand elytra. That had to make it H. affinis, but the elytra were surely too matt for that.
Long story, short; I had made the fatal assumption that this was a Harpalus (partly cos it looked like one) and had forgotten to check the length of the hind tibial spur. As you can see from the image, the spur is shorter than the first hind tarsal segment making this an Anisodactylus.
For some reason I had wrongly thought that this was a saltmarsh genus, so they weren't on my radar. I have now updated my knowledge!
This one is the widespread Anisodactylus binotatus, and I'm surprised that I haven't bumped into it before.
Anyway, it's another new species for me and is number 699....
Or, as Bruce would scream, SIX!...NINE!..NINE!...The number of the Beast('s cousin twice removed on his mum's side)
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