Cypha longicornis

Against my better judgement I decided to try and give this one a go without waiting for Duff to be published. Cypha longicornis is the commonest Cypha and I think that's what it is, but it wasn't straightforward!

I used Hackston to identify it, and here longicornis is the first member of the genus to key, separated from the others by the structure of antennal segments. The 7th segement should be longer and broader than the 6th, as long as the 8th and as broad as at the tip as the base of the 8th. Well, it is longer than the 6th. At its tip it's broader than the 6th, but it's not as proportionately broad as shown in the photo in the key. It's very nearly as long as the 8th and it is as wide at its tip as the base of the 8th. It seems to fit longicornis best, but the 7th is closer to the 6th which is closer to the 5th than the photo - and so the 8th to 10th appear to form a (fairly) distinct club, which fits the others better. Moreover the pronotum, elytra and abdomen are pretty uniformly black with no clearly paler edges as described for longicornis. Well, ok, the edges did appear paler, but this seemed to be where there is light coming through from the otherside because they're not overlapping the abdomen etc. Once the abdomen was removed however, it was possible to see that the whole elytra were in fact brownish compared to the pronotum.

Not being completely sure I checked the genitalia, and at first that confused me even more. The bulbous basal section was much longer than shown in the key for longicornis. If I bypassed longicornis and followed the key I would get to pulicaria or possibly seminulum. In some ways the pictures of the genitalia looked better for either of these, but not in every way - I was far from convinced. Finally I came across the Danish Beetlebank website which had some photos of genitalia of several Cypha species including longicornis and pulicaria, and the longicornis compared well with mine. Moreover the photos of the entire beetles compared well too, two of the photos being just as black as mine.

The beetle was 1.24 mm long.

male Cypha longicornis showing antenna, head, aedeagus (flat and side) and hind tarsi, Wendling Beck Environment Project (Norfolk, UK), 7th May 2023