And still they come...

Today I took another jaunt into the New Forest, this time in the company of The Ghost. Our hope was to find the recently discovered population of Snow Fleas present in one area but, despite quite a lot of leaf-litter sieving and mossy hummock scouring, we ultimately failed in that particular quest. However, plenty more beetles were successfully pooted, the majority being staphylinids, carabids and featherwings (a whole nine of the latter from a single sieve's worth of litter!) plus a couple of weevils and a leaf beetle. 

I haven't attempted a single identification from today's haul - yet. I only finished carding them a short while back and already it's after 11pm. 

For some obscure reason, I neglected to take any pics whilst in the forest, barring an out of focus pic of a Yew Artichoke Gall Taxomyia taxi (which puts Cecidomyiidae on the diptera families yearlist, even though the gall itself was empty) and this pic of a tiny larva which I knocked from a rotten bracket fungus. Behold....(lol)

Pathetic I know - but it's probably the best fungus gnat larva image you'll see today!

My coleopteran haul from the woods comprised 31 individuals, plus a lygid bug and a few tiny flies (sciarids, mostly). We shifted to a different site and had a quick wander along a riverbank in search of flood debris to comb. Less than ideal, though clearly a great quantity of water had rushed through in the recent past, but I managed to find a handful of beetles comprising ten carabids and this leaf beetle.

In real life this is a deep green-blackish colour

Finally, Stenus (a genus of rove beetles) have a protrusible labium which is capable of being violently fired forward in order to ensnare a prey item on the sticky tip, the whole being retracted back to the awaiting jaws at lightning quick speed. Something I'd love to see in action, but is probably very rarely witnessed. Maybe I should keep a few in a small tank and just watch them all day. Anyway, occasionally they die with the labium extended, something I'd heard of but not seen before. Until tonight, that is

Male Stenus impressus (spurs on tibia) doing his best chamaeleon impression

Oh, I've just remembered something (scrap the earlier "Finally"....) 

Finally, whilst carding this Ocys harpaloides, I noticed several Laboulbeniales attached to the pronotum and the apex of one elytron - I've never seen these before, I suspect I can get it to species by host association, something for another night. Edit - Laboulbenia vulgaris appears to be the only laboul that parasitizes Ocys (it also occurs on a great many other genera of carabids) so that was easier than expected. Here's the pic

Tomorrow I'm off to Dinton Pastures CP near Reading with The Ghost. It's the BENHS open day and I have a batch of fungus gnats from Skye to wave in front of Peter Chandler should he be present. Failing that, I have 100 odd beetles collected from the past two days that I ought to compare to named stuff in the collection, if only to see how badly my ID skillz really are. Could be a giggle...