A tropical interloper

Last night I notice a small beetle crawling on the inside pane of the kitchen window. I potted it and had a quick look under the microscope. It was about 3mm long and had a couple of abdominal segments exposed beyond the elytra.

It was as I had first assumed one of the Nitidulidae or pollen beetles and it keyed easily to Carpophilus marginellus, another new beetle for me. It's not one I can find much info on and it's not covered in the RES Pollen Beetles book by Kirk-Spriggs. All I can find is that it was introduced from tropical areas to Europe and is pretty reliant on humans and their stored products.

So I'd better go and check the biscuit tin!

The Imperial Guard Beetle

After 3 full days at Bird Fair, I've had a couple of days off to recover. Yesterday was mostly spend just sitting around not doing much but today the kids and I got out for a few hours to stretch our legs. 

An explore down the banks of the River Cam plus a trip to Wicken kept all fully entertained. I even managed a beetle tick. Now in birder's parlance this was a 'tart's tick', i.e. one that everyone should have seen. 

The reasonably common Anthocomus rufus.

I first saw a single individual on some Purple Loosestrife before then finding them pretty much everywhere!

They are a beautiful beetle when seen up close, but at about 4.5mm you need to get them under a hand lens or microscope to appreciate them properly.

But for some reason all I can think of when I see them is an Imperial Guard from Star Wars

Weird, the tricks the brain plays!

Beetle bycatch

These days one of the best bits of moth trapping for me is the beetle bycatch. The summer months often turn up several species and some of these in good numbers. No two nights are the same and you soon realise that some beetle species seem to disperse, emerge or breed either under very specific conditions or over very small time frames.

A good recent example was from the moth trapping session at Wicken Fen mentioned in the last post. A couple of hour after sunset several pairs (and it did appear to be pairs) of small carabids began turning up at the traps.

I didn't immediately recognise them and assumed they were probably an Agonum species. I hadn't looked properly at the jaws. They have massive jaws.

They are in fact a Badister species and it was soon obvious that they were one of the dilatatus/collaris/peltatus trio. But which one? I'd assumed it would be the commoner dilatatus which I've recorded at Wicken before during the winter. I dissected a male and admittedly struggled a bit to clean the aedagus up, but it was then pointed out that the beetle was Badister collaris.

This appears to be a new species for VC29 and presumably for Wicken although others may have found it and the records haven't yet made it to recording schemes. It's a species that has been steadily moving northwards and so isn't an unexpected find. Assuming all the Badisters that evening were the same species then there were 10s of individuals around the traps.

The other new beetle that turned up was the rather lovely Phyllobrotica quadrimaculata, a chrysomelid and one that apparently feeds on skullcap.

In this light and on this evening

I've just returned from a second week in Scotland (more on both soon).

On a day at home to do washing between the two trips, I ran the moth trap for the first time in a while.

I had 45 plus species of moth including the first hawkmoths of the year and lots of other species I'd not seen for a while.

Privet Hawkmoth

At the bottom of the actinic trap I noticed a smallish carabid running about which I assumed was going to be a Bradycellus species. A quick check and I could see it was something different but I wasn't sure what.  I ran it a couple of times through the key and came out quite easily to Anthracus consputus.

Closely related to Acupalpus species this is the only UK member of its genus. It's found under stones and leaf litter on damp soils. And apparently it sometimes comes to light. Always good to see a new species of carabid!

 Anthracus consputus

Click bait

So far on my journey into beetles, there's a certain family of beetles that I've not really clicked with - the elaterids. (see what I did there?).

They look like they should be easy and they're all relatively big but there isn't really a good up to date key for UK click beetles and I find bits of what there are, really subjective. I often seem to end up going round and round in circles, exploring every divergence of the key. And more often than not just banging my head on the desk.

BUT I am slowly getting there and trying to give them a go.

So here's one that I found whilst out minding my own business on a bit of Bedfordshire heathland in May 2017. This particular individual actually flew in to me.

So the beetle is 8.5mm long and black with browner hairs on the pronotum and elytra. Using Mike Hackston's key the first thing to look for is whether the pronotum and prosternum are separated by a ridge.

The answer is no they're not. This takes us to the subfamily Cardiophorinae and the best bit here is there are only 5 species. Result!!

The rest of the key involves looking at the claws (long and slim) and the colour (all black), the puncturing on the pronotum (regular, fine and dense) and legs (black).

This combination gets us to Cardiophorus asellus. Job done, but.....

I decide to look at records online at NBN and find this

All records are either coastal or in the Brecks. Bugger, I must have made of mistake.

Luckily after putting a query on Facebook, Mark Telfer told me that none of the data from the elaterid recording scheme has been added to NBN and that C. asellus IS on the Bedfordshire list.

So I went and checked the RSPB's list for the Lodge reserve (where this was found) and discovered four previous records for the species. Phew!

Maybe clicks aren't as bad as I thought...

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Some extra bits on click beetles.  An atlas (not the most recent).  Mark Telfer's updated version of Joy's key

Not sweating the small stuff

I picked up these two beetles off an Autumn bracket fungus on a lunch time walk. Both are pretty small at around 2mm each.

The first is pretty distinctive when seen well. A very thin, pointy neck and bulging elytra point to Autalia, one of the easier of the nightmarish aleocharine staphs. There are four species in this genus and they invariably turn up in dung, decaying material and on fungi.

Of the four species only 2 are multi-colored like this - impressa and longicornis. The differences are subtle and best gauged against reference material. So this will have to go down as Autalia sp. until I can compare with others. 

There's a useful overview of the genus here.

This size of beetle is also at the limits of my dissection skills, which may go someway in explaining why I failed to find any genitalia when I took a look inside!

The other beetle from the same fungus is another staph and is equally small. I think this is in the genus Proteinus and if so is possibly ovalis but I'm not sure. So for now will have to join the others in my box of beetles labelled as 'No f***ing idea."

Hung like a country vicar

So my first new beetle of the year is in fact one that I found in August 2017 at Holme Dunes in Norfolk. It's been sat in my fridge since then waiting for me to get round to dissecting it.

I ran it through the keys in Duff's Beetles of Britain and Ireland volume one at the time and it came out as Choleva fagiezi. However, having never seen a Choleva before I wasn't 100% convinced that I'd got it right. The main differences are in a bit of the hind leg called the trochanter.

Luckily the specimen was a male, so I dissected out the aedagus and compared it against the illustrations in Duff and lo and behold got a match with fagniezi.

But look at the image below. The most striking thing is the size of its 'equipment' in relation to its body size. This beetle must be more than half genitals!!

I've no idea what the reason for this massive appendage is but it sure is impressive.

I can't find much out about this genus except that they appear to be associated with mammal nests and presumably feed on the associated decaying material. Although this individual was found on coastal sand dunes.

There don't appear to be too many records for Choleva fagniezi and apparently there are only seven modern records for Norfolk.

So not a bad record to start 2019's beetling.

You spin me right round, baby...

Many are the times that I've watched the surface of a patch of still water and pondered the madness of whirligig beetles.

What exactly are they doing as they perform their mad, gyrating dance. I guess it's probably a feeding strategy combined with a bit of anti-predator defence. However, I like to think they're just listening to some top tunes and dancing like no one is watching.

Anyway, with 11 species in the UK you simply can't ID one from watching it and so I'd never actually properly identified one, except to the general moniker of 'whirligig'.

Over the dark and wet days of the last few weeks I've been working my way through the backlog of unidentified beetles sat in my fridge. And lo and behold a whirligig had been caught in my moth trap one evening, giving me a chance to properly give it a name.

 After a couple of wrong turns in the key and some help on the UK Beetles facebook page, this keys out as Gyrinus substrisatus the most common whirligig in the UK and pretty much ubiquitous. The overall shape, colour of legs and especially claws point to this species.

However, a new species for me and the garden.
Here's a tune for the beetles....

Whipping out yer bits

It's the thing that those who look at beetles often fail to mention (although I often use it as a line at parties) - the fact that in order to identify many beetle species one has to examine the structure of the genitalia under a microscope.

It's taken me a while to dive in properly but now I've started I have to say that I'm rather enjoying it. And it certainly makes identifying many species just that little bit easier.

Take the staph genus Philonthus. There are about 46 species recorded in the UK and external characters only get you so far, especially if you don't have known reference material for comparison. However, find a male, whip out its bits (or in the case of a beetle, its aedeagus) then bob's yer uncle, much easier. Compare to drawings of known species and play match the nadger.

Each species has an unique key (the aedeagus) that fits the females reproductive tract (the lock). It's this that is one of the methods of speciation for many beetles.

For example, I found this particular individual on strandline material in northern Cumbria. I could only get it so far using the keys but the aedeagus immediately IDs it as P. carbonarius.

Another individual from this genus was collected from cow dung in Cambridgeshire in the early summer. The two red patches on the elytra are fairly distinctive but just be sure the aedaegus identifies this as P. cruentatus.

Another genus of staph Lathrobium. Relatively straightforward to get to that bit but once again the aedeagus confirms this as L. geminum.

And it's not just staphs that this is useful for. I found this Heterocerus mud beetle the same night as the aforementioned P. cruentatus but this individual had been attracted to the light of the moth trap we were running. I only got so far with the key and some of the features weren't that distinctive and I certainly wasn't confident putting a specific name to it. A quick root around and its family jewels confirm it as H. fenestratus a rather common beetle but one that I'm happy that I've identified correctly.......

A tale of two histerids

Just down the road from me and within spitting distance of the River Cam is some rather uninspiring farmland.

However, it (and some of the vegetation around) hold a couple of rather good beetles, the leaf beetle Chrysomela saliceti and the histerid Saprinus virescens. For the chrysomelid I think it's its only known UK site.

Fellow moth-er and beetler, Bill had found a Saprinus during the week under some knotgrass - where they prey on the associated Gastrophysa polygoni, so I thought I should go and find my own.

I spent a good couple of hours poking about under all the knotgrass I could find but drew a blank. On leaving, I bumped into beetle expert and pan-species lister, Steve Lane who showed me one that he had found up the road in another field edge - untickable and in a pot but still nice to see.

Whilst there he took me through a hedge to the corner of another field where he'd found some good arable plants. All of which were new to me.

Dwarf Spurge Euphorbia exigua

Round-leaved Fluellen Kickxia spuria

Sharp-leaved Fluellen Kickxia elatine

I also saw this, which presumably must be Redshank Persicaria maculosa but doesn't seem 'quite right'.

Steve also mentioned a large manure heap back down the road that was heaving with Lesser Earwigs (cue a guffaw from the clued-up schoolboys) and the staph Astenus pulchellus.

Off I went and got sieving. Both species were easily seen and I also found the rather nice histerid, Atholus bimaculatus, which was a new one for me.

So I did end the day with a new histerid, just not the one I intended.

In search of the Cliff comber

I've been wanting to go and have a look for a certain carabid beetle for a couple of years now and a last week I finally got my arse in gear and organised an after work trip with fellow beetler, Bill. Leaving home at 17.45 we arrived at Overstrand in NE Norfolk an hour before dusk (19:30).

The beetle in question was Nebria livida sometimes known as the Cliff Comber, a large and predatory ground beetle and a specialist of soft rock cliffs. Historically known from Norfolk to East Yorkshire it only appears to be hanging on on the soft cliffs either side of Cromer.

After beating a patch of Sea Buckthorn and attracting the attention of a couple of holidaying families who asked us what we were doing, we made our way down to the beach and headed east.

The habitat here is fairly dynamic with parts of the cliff collapsing each year, yielding new patches of bare clay. Other parts are quite well vegetated having had a number of years for plants to establish. There were also numerous fresh water seeps coming out the base of the cliff and it was here we would focus our search. 

Over the next 4 hours we found various beetles including Asaphidion pallipes, Platyderus depressus, Paranchus albipes and several species of Bembidion.....but no livida.

By 23:30 we were tired and still had a long drive home so we decided to call it a day.

We both felt like it needed another go, so last week saw a repeat trip out but this time to East Runton. The cliffs are steeper and there are far less water seeps and this time the weather was looking beautifully ominous.

However, after about 90 minutes of searching we came across a couple of isolated water seeps and lo and behold our quarry was there, hanging out at the top of the beach around these damp patches, waiting for whatever these beetles feed on.

They were absolutely stunning creatures and we counted at least 11 individuals over the next 20 or so minutes. It's good to see this species still hanging on here but the longer term forecast for them is less rosy. How much longer will they hang on.....

Elsie's Beetle

I love Tanner Beetles Prionius coriarius. They are massive and they look like they mean business. I mean you really wouldn't want to bump into to one at night down a dark alley. It would have your wallet off you soon as wave an antenna at you.

Just look at it....

I have only ever seen them at the RSPB headquarters at the Lodge and all have been around a single building there. My first was back in 2006 and my latest was today. This particular individual was found beneath the MV moth trap that is occasionally run and by the afternoon had crawled up the side of the building and was just sat on a wall.

They are magnificent creatures. What I noticed today was that the eyes can see below and above at the same time. Each eye wraps round the entire side of each head. The two sets of palps were also much in evidence and were constantly moving but not actually touching anything.  

                                                    

I did try to think of a witty title but it was either leather or old Coronation Street characters. I went with the latter! Quite the resemblance......

Sphodrine dreams

In the last post I mentioned that I'd been to a Carabid course at the BENHS Dinton Pastures. While there I was looking at some of the drawers of the carabids that they hold in their collection. As I was looking I came across some specimens of a rather large carabid that I didn't immediately recognise. It was also sat taxonomically in a place that confused me, between Calathus and Laemostenus. 

I'm not sure how I'd missed these whilst reading the various books I have on beetles but this one had oddly slipped through. The genus Sphodrus.

I asked Mark Telfer about them, and their story, what little there is of it, is rather fascinating. Sphodrus leucopthalmus probably originates in the Near East and spread as "civilisation" did. It was found in cellars and other dark and damp places such as outdoor buildings where it apparently preyed on the Blaps spp. that also frequented this habitat. Both species were highly dependent on places created by pre-modern man.

Over the last couple of hundred of years but especially in the last 50 or 60, Blaps mucronota populations have crashed as the places they once were found have been lost. Cellars have, for the majority of houses been lost and most out buildings have gone or are just generally tidier; watertight with concrete floors.

The impressive predator that is Sphodrus leucopthalmus hasn't been seen in the UK since the late 70s/early 80s and has apparently also had a similar crash across all its former range.

Is it now extinct in the UK or does it hang on quietly in a cellar or barn-complex remnant somewhere? Presumably, where reasonably-sized populations of Blaps still exist there is a possibility that Sphodrus does too.

I have to admit to being fascinated by this story. Its has special resonance as I still have Blaps living under the house, occasionally appearing in the kitchen late at night to feed on scraps of food. I wonder if in the distant past there were Sphodrus there too?

The Predicted Sunshiner makes a late appearance.

I first started to identify beetles in 2014, but it was the following year when I started to make more of an effort to take specimens and get these double checked by someone with more experience to make sure any records I made were valid.

In the following three years I've got a bit better at identifying certain families but I still require a fair bit of help from time to time. Certain groups such as Amara and Aphodius I've found quite a struggle and so I have managed to amass several specimens where I just can't nail an ID.

But help has recently been at hand! Last Saturday, I was lucky enough to attend the BENHS Carabid workshop at Dinton Pastures run by Mark Telfer and Johan Walters.

It was a good chance to meet fellow beetle enthusiasts and put some faces to names. It was also the perfect chance to get a name to some of my mystery beetles. Luckily Mark was very generous with his time and I was able to go through several specimens and get his expert opinion.

One of the Amara in my box rather unexpectedly turned out to me Amara majuscula. This was only recently discovered in the UK at a moth trap in Norfolk and couple of subsequent records plus one earlier one have come to light. Chronologically, my record which was 1.vii.2015 and turned up in my moth trap, is the second record for the UK. Not bad for a garden in suburban Cambridgeshire!

Mark has given majuscula the English name Predicted Sunshiner, because the arrival of this species in Britain was predicted by Carl Lindroth in a 1972 paper but it took another 43 years to come true!

Anyway, if you want a good key to this genus I'd recommend Mark's very helpful key. It's certainly helping me learn to love Amara.

But what does Amara majuscula look like, I hear you ask?

A right stunner ;)