Hallomenus binotatus

I had considerable difficulty working out what family this belonged to. My first attempts using Unwin and Duff led to Tenebrionidae and Scraptiidae. It certainly shared some resemblance to both families but neither family keys led me to a satisfactory conclusion. Re-keying didn't progress things so in desperation I turned to ObsIdentify. I'm not sure that even recognised it was a beetle so I then tried Google Lens! This offered a feasibly similar image of an Abdera species, but it wasn't right. But Melandryidae was a new family lead, so I tried keying that. Nope, not that. Further down on Google Lens there was another promising candidate, Hallmoneus binotatus. Sure enough this checked out perfectly, and running it through the Tetratomidae key it ended up here. So, where did I go wrong? Well looks like I may not have gone wrong using Unwin as it seems Hallmomenus wasn't always in Tetratomidae, and Unwin only keys those with clubbed antennae there. I did go wrong in Duff, apparently with judging the presence or size of the temples. The head had retracted more than shown in the live photo and the temples were barely visible. It was 5.5mm long.

It was worth the effort - it doesn't appear to be a particularly common species.

Hallomenus binotatus, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 4th August 2022

After processing that one I was surprised to discover that I had in fact found one of these before (like the last, attracted to light). I don't recall if I had similar difficulties back then or not.

Hallomenus binotatus, North Elmham (Norfolk, UK), 19th August 2018