New Fife beetle

On a random whim today I headed for leaf litter sieving in the woods. The ground's been a bit warmer and, honestly, I was hoping to pick up a spider or two. Of course when you start throwing leaf litter around anything's possible.

What I didn't expect, I think reasonably, was a big shiny dollop of histerid beetle to gleam from the gathering humus layer in my tray. I love these things, but I've only ever seen one species. In two places. I've been dreaming and scheming of baited pitfall traps and bottle traps, of sieving poo etc., in the hopes of seeing maybe one or two. I still am, but nt sure what may be around here. There's certainly no shortage of poo and I'm happy to provide carrion. I guess they are so shiny because they want all that, erm, stuff, to slide off them like a shiny wotsit, as the proverb says.

Anyway, that was a long way for a short cut. This is Margarinotus neglectus, The Lonely Clown (awww). There are no dots in the new Histeridae bookie, so I'm claiming it as new to county. 

2021 beetle #63, Margarinotus neglectus, new to me, new to Cullaloe, new to Fife.

Gleaming underside. Fabulous.

Gleaming upperside, with handy etching

Digging and dipteran larvae munching tools

Pygidium-sh bits (the back end)

Another beetle I grabbed from the filter beds the other day, with a minor sense horror, turned out to be Helophorus obscurus, which I actually thought it might be. However, it had the good graces to be male and to allow me to extract the necessary bits to secure the ID.

2021 beetle #64, Helophorus obscurus