And finally for now, definitely another new species, although quite which exactly ... 😬

This small black fellow seems fairly likely to be a spiny-legged rove beetle of the Oxytelinae sub-family, but beyond that, it's hard.

iNaturalist prefers Anotylus rugosus, but also suggests the very similar Cophrophilus striatulus 🤨

Based on the pictures, I slightly favour the former 🤷‍♂️

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Now speaking of gnats, I took this picture a few minutes before the Trichocera ones & initially thought it was the same species 🤨

But the distinctive abdomen shape of this one is quite different.

The best guess that iNaturalist can come up with is the Bolitophila genus, but I can't immediately narrow it down to any of the ~40 species found in the Palearctic 🤷‍♂️

Anyone?

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While that gnat was a new species for me, this is not – it's a tiny globular springtail called Dicyrtomina ornata (Bunte Kugelspringe in 🇩🇪), that I first photographed a fortnight ago.

But this is a (slightly) better picture, showing the lovely metallic patterning more clearly 🙂👍

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Here's the oddity.

Near the adult banded rhopalid (S. punctatonervosus) in the previous picture, there were some nymphs.

The larger one's a decent match for pix of late-stage nymphs of that species, but the two smaller (younger?) ones have me stumped – the body colours are similar, but the seven white stripes on the head don't resemble any rhopalid nymph I can find.

Anyone?

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I've seen this rhopalid species in the garden many times, but for some reason, have never posted a photo or added it to my list.

That ends today.

I'm pretty sure that it's a banded rhopalid (Stictopleurus punctatonervosus).

But there's a bit of uncertainty, as you'll see in the next post.

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This was a tricky customer, hiding in the undergrowth – I couldn't get a good angle without fear of shaking the plants & having it fly away.

But the colouration & curved upwards shape of the end of the abdomen with a spike coming out, suggests a fly in the Tephrochlamys genus.

iNaturalist proposes T. rufiventris, but T. flavipes & T. tarsalis look v similar.

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