Enochrus ochropterus

I had previously showed a couple of beetles on this page which I had tentatively identified as Enochrus ochropterus, albeit with some doubt as not all the characters matched. I have now reidentified these as Enochrus quadripunctatus so have moved the photos to that page. However, I have now found one that I think really is ochropterus, so this page is reinstated.

This one came to light in my garden and, having recently examined an Enochrus quadripunctatus I immediately suspected this was different. It was a little larger (5.0mm long but may have been a little longer in life) and the pronotum was more extensively dark. It started keying the same way as quadripunctatus, until I reached the point where ochropterus breaks off. Here it became problematic as I have still not managed to make sense of this couplet - I've not managed to see 2-3 rows of coarser setiferous punctures on any of the quadripunctatus that I've examined, so the fact that I couldn't see them here didn't mean it was ochropterus.

A look at the mesosternal tooth confirmed that I was not dealing with another quadripunctus. The mesosternal tooth was also wrong for fuscipennis but wasn't far off how it's shown for halophilus at the Käfer Europas website. It couldn't be halophilus though as the apical maxillary palopmere was dark, and that just left ochropterus. Käfer Europas doesn't show the mesosternal tooth for ochropterus so I couldn't confirm this ID that way. It shows the tarsal claws, and my beetle matched, but it isn't clear to me how these differ from some of the other species in the group. Käfer Europas also shows the aedeagus for all four species so I set about examining this and it seems to be a good match for ochropterus. I'm not entirely clear how the aedeagus differs from bicolor, but I think that is safely eliminated for other reasons.

male Enochrus ochropterus showing head, hind tarsus, apical sternite, maxillary palp, mesosternal tooth, hind tarsal claw and genital capsule, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 13th August 2024