A brief Ally Pally whip round

Not an awful lot done natural history-wise this weekend. Made a quick loop round Ally Pally and still found a few interesting creatures: Bruchus rufimanus – a bean weevil (although actually in the leaf beetle family Chrysomelidae, not Curculionidae) was a totally new find to me. They have oddly faceted femora and tibiae which made me think of the Pill Beetles (Byrrhidae) at first especially as they fold perfectly into place against a round body. But the antennae weren’t right and the eyes were oddly shaped into bulged ‘V’s around the antennae. This isn’t an easy group to ID even with a microscope and it’s entirely possible I got it wrong.

Lots of familiar common stuff was about too with 7, 14, 16 and 24 spot ladybirds, a Cantharis sp. beetle, an odd small Empis sp. fly, an Altica sp. beetle, what I assume was the grass-bug Stenodema laevigata (I need to stop being so lazy and get this and the several other similar-ish species sorted), nymphs of a grass bug - Leptopterna dolobrata, Speckled Bush-cricket & Roesel’s Bush-cricket.

I also found a large ground beetle under a piece of roof felt which I also took home to ID. I was amazed at how docile it became under the light of my microscope. Most ground beetles are photophobic and will run frantically looking for darkness. This fellow sat fairly still and gave me excellent views, allowing me to ID it rapidly to Pterostichus madidus. A very common species that I’d suspected due to the red legs but not one I’d keyed out properly before. I feel confident enough now that I could field ID this species as it’s relatively distinctive as carabids go. The thing I found most interesting was being able to see the structure of the cleaning notch on its front tibia in full detail. It uses this notch to wipe clean the antennae, palps and to an extent the other limbs. It's equipped with a ring of recurved bristles and one oddly curved spine that looks like it may function like a spring clip: holding an antenna in place in the notch. I released him back into the rough grassland outside my flats; the Stygian-winged little eating machine is probably working his way through woodlice and grubs right now.