Polydrusus flavipes

In 2021 I joined others to sort through a large number specimens from Malaise traps that had been set at Broadland Country Park. They were sorted into orders, with the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and Trichoptera (caddisflies) ending up with me to take home and identify. Inevitably with insect soup, hundreds of specimen packed together in alcohol, the odd insect was sorted into the wrong pot, and among the Lepidoptera and Trichoptera specimens that came to me were two beetles. One of these was I was surprised to discover was Polydrusus flavipes, a species that I was only aware of having been recorded in Norfolk once before.

It turned out that Martin Collier also had a Polydrusus flavipes among the Coleoptera specimens he had taken home to identify from the same traps. Both were from wet alder woodland.

I keyed mine using Duff and checked it against Mark Gurney's weevil guide, noting that the elytral setae were clearly dark and the pronotal setae were long and forward-pointing. I would have liked to have compared the aedeagus with the figures in Duff but on dissection it proved to be a femmale.

female Polydrusus flavipes, Broadland Country Park (Norfolk, UK), 27th July to 3rd August 2021