Amara familiaris

This beetle turned up in a vane trap in my garden. I found it rather difficult to key but I think I got there in the end. First of all the scutellary pores were rather indistinct - I thought they were present but I wasn't 100% sure. Secondly I didn't think the elytral striae were particularly clearly deepened apically so went wrong there initially. Then I (correctly) took the legs to be uniformly pale rather than the femora blackish, though I wasn't completely convinced this was correct as the femora were slightly darker than the tibia (and quite dark at their apex). After going down various other avenues, either through mistake or through eliminating the options I wasn't sure about, I was happy I'd elimiated all other options apart from familiaris and lucida. Separating these two depends on the shape of the pronotum but this depends on the angle it's viewed from. The foreangles didn't seem quite as strongly produced as shown in Duff's diagram but they did look more-or-less right-angled when viewed from the side. I favoured familiaris but my confidence was only high enough once I'd compared it to a familiaris in Adrian G's collection. I'd still like to see a lucida to compare it, and have retained this beetle so that I can in future. The beetle was 5.65mm long.

Amara familiaris showing scutellary pore and prototum (from above, fore angle from side and front edge from in front), North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 22nd April 2025

Previously I had obtained two beetles from different sites, Horsey and St Faith's Common (now Broadland Country Park), on the same day and, with some difficulty as I recall, identified them both as Amara familiaris. I was very inexperienced with the genus at the time - indeed with beetles in general - but even so, reviewing the photos now I am surprised that I managed to conclude they were both the same species. One, a dark-legged individual, was clearly misidentified - perhaps aenea but the photos aren't clear enough to be sure. The other, shown below, does look good for familiaris I think, so I suspect it was identified correctly. This is the one that I have labelled as being from St Faith's Common, but whilst familiaris is apparently very common in the Horsey area it appears to be much scarcer inland away from the Brecks, with no records on the NBN Atlas from anywhere very close to St Faith's. Did I mix the two specimens up? Normally I'm pretty careful about this sort of thing, but I think I got in a bit of a muddle with these. So in the end I think I must withdraw both records, one as the ID is incorrect and the other as the location is in doubt.

Amara familiaris, location uncertain, East Norfolk (Norfolk, UK), 18th April 2018