The Remains of the Day

I have only ever seen Dendroxena quadrimaculata twice; in 2009 at Ebernoe and again in 2012 at Parham Park. Today I found a single elytron in a spider's web when servicing the data loggers at Ebernoe Common. There are less than ten records for this nationally scarce species in Sussex and all from the West, we didn't find it all during a repeat survey there in 2016. I love identifying beetles from body parts. It's like sea-watching for invertebrates. Distant and tantalising glimpses at the edge of your ability. This one is pretty distinctive though. A caterpillar-predating carrion beetle with unusual markings.

The most abundant beetle elytra behind the loggers in the spider's webs is what I am now coming to know as my least favourite beetle: Nalassus laevioctostriatus. A beetle that has way too many syllables for something so ubiquitous and dull. It truly is the Meadow Pipit of the beetle world. Most of the time if you find one intact, it's covered in fungus. I think they are so slow moving that they can't even outrun a fungus. What's your least favourite beetle?

Most of the spiders were Amaurobius but I did spot this HUGE Tegenaria gigantea which popped out from under one of the protective flaps hiding the loggers. I didn't jump at all.

Later on I noticed this mass of regurgitated beetles. Almost all of them looked to be the Woodland Dor Beetle Anoplotrupes stercorosus but there were a few carabids in there too. I wonder what had selectively sought these beetles out? It seems to have been lying here for some time. Hawfinch calling around the Brick Kiln too and my first Chiffchaff of the year at Woods Mill.