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Photo#1457854
Peltis pippingskoeldi? - Peltis pippingskoeldi

Peltis pippingskoeldi? - Peltis pippingskoeldi
Alex Hole, Siskiyou County, California, USA
July 9, 2012
I think this is Peltis pippingskoeldi. Photographed in the afternoon on my shirt or pants. Unfortunately I can't remember whether I initially saw it crawling on my clothes, or whether it ended up there after finding it on the ground or the bark of a tree.

At any rate, I believe these are fungivores typically found under the bark of trees.

Images of this individual: tag all
Peltis pippingskoeldi? - Peltis pippingskoeldi Peltis pippingskoeldi? - Peltis pippingskoeldi Peltis pippingskoeldi? - Peltis pippingskoeldi

Moved, must be Peltis pippingskoeldi
Moved from Beetles.

 
Thanks, Blaine
I'd seen "pippi" once before...but posted these photos here quickly without studying ID possibilities, so wasn't sure whether there might be lots of similar-looking taxa.

This morning, having more time, I checked the info page for genus Peltis and saw we have just 3 species in North America under the current circumscription. Though it seems the circumscriptions have not been especially stable over recent years: my earlier post was initially placed under Ostoma...and species septentrionalis (though that species placement was perhaps just an inadvertent error, as both that individual and this one seem to have the "checkered" pattern that I'm guessing is distinctive for "pippi").

This does appear to go to genus Peltis in the 2013 taxonomic review of Trogossitidae by Kolibáč. Seems the most detailed recent refs for getting the nitty-gritty on species ID for this may be:

Barron J.R. (1996) Review of Nearctic species of Ostoma (Coleoptera: Cleroidea, Trogositidae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America 89(2): 193-202.
Barron, J.R. (1971) A revision of the Trogositidae of America North of Mexico (Coleoptera: Cleroidea). Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Canada 75: 1-143.
...though the results of working through those two papers would need to be filtered though more recent refs for current names/synonymy. Unfortunately, I couldn't find either of Barron's papers online (just abstracts).

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