Bitter Keying

I spent much of today ripping up old carpets and underlay and checking beneath floorboards throughout the entire reception/lobby/bar area. Not a sniff of any beetles, bugs or flies. Not even a dead bluebottle. Hygiene levels are obviously set far too high in this hotel, dammit...

So I decided to have a trawl through the 'unidentified' section of my Skye storebox. Oooh look, some mystery beetles! Practice makes perfect (well, less awful) and all that. I grabbed a carabid that looked like an Amara to my untrained eye. 

Keying it through to family I was pleased to prove myself right, it was an Amara after all. Not an especially tricky family to recognise, to be fair. But a bit of an arse ache to get to species, by all accounts (not named Amara for nothing...) 

Undaunted, I hit the keys. Somehow I only went wrong a couple of times before everything slotted into place surprisingly well. 

Apologies for the pin, this was from way back in 2017!!!

Any thoughts yet? I'm sure some of you will have sussed it already, but I'm a numpty and don't know the shortcuts yet. Keying through went a little like this - 

So I'd already keyed to Amara and was happy with that. I then needed to check the apical spur (single rather than tri-lobed) and the antennae showed pale basal segments that abruptly changed to darker segments. That took me to Amara sensu stricto. Cool, I'm getting somewhere.

Running the key through all relevant couplets went as follows - 

1) Legs entirely pale (nope!)…..4

4) At least basal half of 3rd antennal segment pale (it was entirely pale, in fact)…..8

8) Length at least 6mm and scutellary stria present (definitely on both counts)…..9

9) Scutellary pore absent....14

14) complicated shizzle (deep breath...) 

So my blind spot has always been seeing the fovea. No, that's not right. I mean, I can see them, interpreting what I'm looking at is the issue I have. No matter how I angle the light source, or the beetle itself, I just cannot match what I'm seeing to the drawings in the keys. Ever. Which is a real pisser, because by this point I'd narrowed it down to just four species (and one of those doesn't occur in Scotland). 

So that just doesn't match anything for Amara! 

Seriously, I always fall down at this point. Crossed epipleurs not a problem. Dorsal punctures along the striae not a problem. Number of hairs on penultimate segments of labial palps, easy. Recurved striae fine. Fovea? Get lost!

So, back to 14)

14)  - elytral striae fine to elytral apex, where intervals are flat, inner pronotal fovea consisting of a short, deep streak
 - elytral striae deepened apically, where elytral intervals are convex, inner pronotal fovea shallow or more gradually defined

Oh bugger off. What kind of concrete features are those meant to be? Ok, so the intervals looked fairly flat but with possible convex curvature. And who even knows what the fovea looked like! These are subjective decisions to make, and the key requires a decisive yes or no to progress. I dunno, bit of both maybe? How flat? How deep? How fine? How short a streak? What classes as shallow in the world of fovea?

If I decided to plump for the former option it dropped me out to species. If.

If I decided the latter option worked best it led to a further three species. I continued onwards and it didn't work (pronotum wasn't punctured and elytral punctures weren't interrupted) which dropped out at a very rare species entirely unknown to Scotland. So, by backing up a little and choosing the former option the key drops out at a very common species which is already known from Skye.

Ok, former option it is then! Not an entirely satisfactory use of the keys, I have to admit. However, I did a lot of background reading regards the species it keyed through to. Everything looked fine but, as per usual, it was the fantastic Watford Coleoptera Group that provided the necessary confirmation.

First three and base of fourth antennal segment orange, seemingly a very good feature

The WCG add an awful lot of extra detail that isn't in the keys. Stuff like the edges of the pronotum being thickly bordered laterally but less so basally, that the basal pronotal setae is situated close to the hind corner which is almost right-angled, the presence of two preapical punctures on 7th striae and another at the tip of the 2nd striae. I checked my specimen, everything fitted beautifully. They also confirmed that it's a dirt common species.

So, after all that, what is it? Well, this is a male Amara aenea and a lifer for me. Nice, pity it took me nineteen whole months to get around to keying it through!

I have a bonus day off work tomorrow (we prepped everything for the builders in one day instead of the anticipated two) so I shall be out there again trying to find all things beetle, fly or bug orientated. Tune in later for more of the same!

Staphs and a Snail-eater

Today I spent an hour or so searching beneath logs, rocks and bits of debris for beetles. Mostly I was expecting to find the carabid Nebria brevicollis, a surprise absentee yesterday. Guess what...

Nebria brevicollis - it's a pretty common beetle up here

There are three species of Nebria that could occur up here in Uig, so I need to keep my wits about me and continue checking. I'd hate to think I'm overlooking Nebria salina and Nebria rufescens, both of which occur widely up here. Nebria nivalis is known from Skye too, though presumably only from high, barren mountaintops. Yep, I definitely need to keep scrutinising them all. 

The all important hind tarsi - has a double row of fine hairs in N.brevicollis which are absent in N.salina

So that was brevicollis added to the burgeoning list (3 species of beetle now, oof!) What else could I find? 

This is the finest pile of rocks for miles around!

I've gone through these dumped rocks so many times I've lost track. It's a great hunting ground for slugs, snails, millipedes, centipedes, flatworms, harvestmen, worms, woodlice, nemerteans - and beetles, of course!  

Large carabid in it's cell

I love lifting a rock and finding something like this! Abax and Cychrus make these 'overwintering cells' as I call them, I often find millipedes or slugs curled up inside vacant cells. I can only think that the big bulky beetles know they'd get flattened if a curious entomologist lowered their rock down too quickly, so it's clearly an adaptation to survive folks like me. Truly nature is marvellous.  

This carabid was covered in dirt, something I've come to realise means it's likely to be Cychrus rather than the shiny, clean Abax. A gentle bit of teasing out with a twig later and...

Oooh yeah, that's Cychrus caraboides alright! A female judging by the size of the maxillary palp tips

Those elongated jaws and the narrow head are adaptations to suit its feeding habits. This beetle preys on snails (the genus Oxychilus being favourites - plenty of those here) by jamming it's whole head into the shell. I bumped into Neil, a local chap who, amongst a great many other things, is quite into his beetles. He asked me why they don't feed on slugs too. I couldn't answer that, maybe slugs are too slimy, maybe they're too big and muscular, maybe they fight back! Or maybe it's because Oxychilus smell garlicky and taste better? I just don't know. 

Beneath the same pile of stones I found a rather handsome staphilinid, one I see quite often but haven't ever gotten around to keying through. Terrible behaviour, I do have the book after all. 

Back indoors I made a pretty poor job of the whole carding process. I'll soak it off the card, relax it properly and try again, see if I can't get it to lay a bit flatter and neater than it currently is. 

What a bodge job. Beautiful beetle though

Running it through the keys to genera it dropped out at Tribe Othiini, and then to the genus Othius. From there it was easy - bigger than 9mm (yep, it was 11mm) = Othius punctulatus. I'll refrain from mentioning the fact that I was going around in circles for about an hour, all because I misinterpreted what the key was asking me to check. Maybe I ought to find a grown up to sit beside me when I'm keying stuff from now on. Anyway, got there in the end! I've been shown Othius punctulatus before, but this is the first time I've keyed it for myself and thankfully it's distinctive enough that I can ID it by eye from now on. It's a common beetle which has already been recorded from Skye and Raasay.

You can read lots more about Othius punctulatus by clicking on this page

Back to work tomorrow, I'll do my best to try and find something to blog about though. 

Ptinus fur - new for Skye

Well it appears that I was right, last night's beetle is indeed Ptinus fur, a lifer for me and seemingly new to the Inner Hebrides (Moore, 2012).

There are several species in the genus, some of which look quite similar. Add to this the variability in elytral patterning and overall shape differences between the two sexes and it could be quite easy to misidentify this small beetle. Thankfully the family is covered by Joy and Mike Hackston has provided one of his fantastic online keys which covers the Ptinidae. By bumbling my way around these I narrowed it down to species. 

Some pics of the beast

Pronotum with two combs of longer, thickened hairs which are very pale whitish-yellow and directed backwards forming an angle with one another in the middle of the constriction at the base (Hackston)

Evenly rounded shoulders so presumably a female

4th abdominal segment less than half the width of the 3rd

I'm really going to have to find a setting that has a better white balance to it. Or maybe use a different lighting set up for my microscope.

A quick bumble through the woods added a solitary Phosphuga (Silpha) atrata to the Beetle Yearlist which now stands at a huge two species. Rather shockingly, no sign of Nebria brevicollis!

This afternoon I shall attempt to card the Ptinus, it'll be the smallest thing I've ever carded by a mile! Wish me luck...

Update: carding was duly undertaken, I'm not sure where my fine paintbrush has disappeared to so I had to use pins to move bits into place. Not ideal! Anyway, here she is

And We're Off!

Huzzah! Been a long time coming, but 2019 finally began an hour ago and I sped off into the wilds in search of beetles, flies or bugs. 

Guess what...I found just one individual beetle and it's a lifer for me! 

So I was sneaking around in the grounds of Uig Hotel (don't worry - I live and work in the hotel, it's all perfectly fine and legit) with my pathetic wee torch that puts out about as much light as your average glow worm, hence I couldn't see anything, when I missed my footing whilst descending a flight of concrete steps and very almost fell over. I put my hand out to grab the wall and cleverly managed to cut my thumb open. Gee, well that's a great start...

Luckily, there's a laundry shed situated in the grounds which stays lit all night. I gave up falling over in the dark and headed for that. I can easily set the timer so that the shed lights turn off after hours, but I prefer to use it as a massive light-trap and see what it attracts. Tonight I struck solid gold

Chances are I won't be winning too many prizes for the quality of this image

This small beetle (approx. 3 or 4mm) was sat immobile on the ceiling. I stood gazing up at it for a good five or ten seconds trying to place it into a family. Then I saw sense and gave up, took a pic and potted it up. 

Here's the cropped version

Initially I thought it had some dried scuzz stuck on the elytra, but now I think it's patterning. I think I know what it is too. I think this is Ptinus fur, somewhat related to the Niptus Golden Spider Beetles I have wandering around the skirting boards of my downstairs loo. In fact, one common name for it is the White-marked Spider Beetle. It certainly has a weird gangly way of walking, somewhat similar to Niptus though not as comical. 

Tomorrow (well, later today actually) I shall have a go at keying through and carding the beast. So, against all expectations, Nebria brevicollis was not my first beetle of the year. One hour in and already 2019 is throwing me a curveball. And a probable lifer.

I'll continue with this beetle tomorrow (today...) Hope you all had a great New Year, I'm off to grab some beauty sleep.

Welcome

Hello folks, welcome to my shiny new blog!

This site acts as an accompaniment to my other blog, PSL - Skye's the Limit which deals with my everyday activities as a pan-species lister living on the Isle of Skye. 

The difference with this blog, is that I'm using it purely for my '2019 Challenge' (as I've just this very moment dubbed it). I'm stepping away from the fun-filled but crazy headrush that is Andy Musgrove's 1000 in a 1KSQ Challenge and focussing on just three insect orders. I say just three, but they are all huge and I'm crap at all of them - should be an interesting year!

After starting the 1KSQ Challenge on 1st January 2017, and not stopping until October 2018, I've amassed a rather sizeable species list for NG3963, my beloved monad. But scanning down through that list, I find myself baffled as to what some of them are. A what? A which? When was that then? Too many species (well over 1400) in too short a time, my head has been spinning for nearly two whole years trying to keep up with myself. Lots of the ID knowledge has been lost, forgotten or has become muddled up. 

So I'm drawing a line in the sand and changing tactics. I still have an incredible desire to discover, but I have an equally incredible desire to be able to remember what I've found and to then recognise it again in the future. 

The three orders I've chosen to focus on are Coleoptera (beetles), Hemiptera (bugs) and Diptera (true flies). I've seen a very low percentage of the British fauna for each of these groups, so I'm going to be doing an awful lot of learning, and undoubtedly a lot of head-scratching too.

Rhagio scolopaceus - the rather handsome Downlooker Snipefly

I've set up pages for each group, which I plan to populate with photo-essays of the ID process as well as stunning images of the beasts in their habitat and a running tally of the species encountered and identified. Ha, so I best start saving up for a new camera, I've rather trashed this one. 

Elasmucha grisea - the Parent Bug

I expect I'll slowly start losing the plot before too long, then run screaming for the hills when everything bursts into life around May time. We'll just have to wait and see...

Oreodytes sanmarkii - a pair in cop, swimming in the nearby river