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 Project (Norfolk, UK), 8th October 2023

This also came to light, in east Kent. It was a similar story to the last one, keying to laqueatus or piceus using Lott, and showing either the rounded temples of female laqueatus or, and as it turned out, the sternites of male piceus. Given that there are no records of piceus showing on the NBN Atlas for Kent or indeed pretty much the whole of the SE of England, and none on iRecord for Kent, I began to question whether this - and therefore also the one above - could really be piceus. This time I had the opportunity to double-check the ID using Duff, and there it also keys to piceus. Duff also shows the aedeagi of the various Oxytelus species and it was reassuring to find my specimen's adeagus did indeed match piceus.

male Oxytelus piceus showing head, base of antennae, pronotum, elytram, apical sternites (before and after clearing), sternites 7 and 8 and aedeagus, Cooper Street, near Ash (Kent, UK), 16th July 2026