2021 March 24 morning

 

   Mr E sends a photograph of the creature below running rapidly just outside his doorstep.  I thought it was going to be a difficult creature to identify, writes Jeremy Tatum, but I sent it to two beetle enthusiasts, Charlene Wood and Scott Gilmore, who had no difficulty in identifying it immediately as the larva of the snail-eating ground beetle Staphinotus sp., probably S. angusticollis, whose adult form has appeared several times on this site, most recently just two days ago (March 22).

 

Staphinotus (probably angusticollis)  (Col.: Carabidae)   Mr E

 

   Here is another fine portrait of a globose springtail, kindly identified for us by Dr Frans Janssens in Antwerp.   To aid in its identification (there are lots of similar species!), Frans writes:  Note the striped butt patch in the shape of a small Christmas tree.

 

  It’s good to learn all these technical terms such as “butt”!

 

Dicyrtomina minuta f. saundersi  (Coll.: Dicyrtominidae)   Ian Cooper