Amara plebeja

This was in a pitfall trap (in propylene glycol, so no live photos). It was my first member of the subgenus Zezea with its distinctively trifid tibial spur and as such it was reassuring to see how evident this was. I've often keyed past this when looking at other Amara and wondered how careful I needed to be to avoid mistaking the apical bristles either side of the spur for the outer arms of the spur. Having now seen what the trifid spur actually looks like I don't think there's too big a risk of overlooking it. One of the characters separating plebeja from strenua (unlikely in Norfolk I think) is the smoothness of the sides of the sternites (smooth in plebeja and punctate in strenua). They were smooth in the sense of being unpunctured, though with a slightly wrinkled texture.

Amara plebeja showing fore tibia spur, pronotum and side of sternites, Wendling Beck Environment Project (Norfolk, UK), 29th to 31st March 2024

This was one of two in pitfall traps, alive as they were dry this time but unfortunately still no live photos as I was so busy when I emptied them I didn't have time to take photos of much of the contents. The ID would have been much more straightforward if I'd remembered to check the fore tibia spur before attempting to key it as subgenus Amara! Fortunately it fails to key if you do miss this, or at least only keys to species that are much larger (this was 6.4mm long).

Amara plebeja showing pronotum (dorsal and hind corner), base of elytra, sides of sternites, antenna base and fore tibia spurs (3 views), Wendling Beck Environment Project (Norfolk, UK), 11th-12th May 2025