Oxytelus piceus

This beetle keyed straight to Oxytelus piceus but as it's supposed to be quite a scarce species and normally found in dung (this one came to LED light) I checked it carefully. I keyed it using Lott and when I got to the final couplet (between laqueatus and piceus) I hadn't sexed it. Seeing the temples were strongly rounded I half-expected it to be laqueatus (this would have made it so had it been a female, the first character given in Lott). But a cursory look at the underside of the tip of the abdomen and comparing this to the figures it became immediately clear that it was a male piceus not laqueatus (though getting a photo of this was much harder). Additional characters given in the species account also supported this ID. After death, with the body slightly concertinaed, the beetle measured 3.8mm - I'm sure it would have been slightly over 4mm in life.

male Oxytelus piceus showing first segments of antennae (2 photos), clypeus, head from above, rear of head (2 views), pronotum, abdominal tergites, abdominal sternite 7 and abdominal sternite 8 (2 views), Wendling Beck Environment Project (Norfolk, UK), 8th October 2023