Tony-

I'd have to go with Chaetophora spinosa for this specimen. While there is a certain kind of irregular, irridescent sheen to the integumen of the dorsal surface visible in the photo (common in byrrhids), I don't see any evidence of scale-like setae (as there are in, say, many dermestids).

Again, I'd be nice to have the specimen in front of me for confirmation, but this is pretty convincingly C. spinosus. At least in my mind! In interesting find of an established species from Europe...

cheers,

Tony-

You're definitely on the right track. One of the first characters to look at in identifying byrrhids is the shape of the antenna. In this case, I'm taking the slightly out-of-focus structure hovering above the juncture of the head and pronotum as a capitate (or clubbed) antenna as opposed to a clavate (leaf-clubbed) one. If that is indeed the case, you can narrow this critter down to Curimopsis or Chaetophora.

According to the American Beetles book, Chaetophora spinosus (a monotypic genus imported from Europe) is the smaller of the two, coming in at 0.9-2.1mm as opposed to 2.4-3.2mm for Curimopsis. Also, C. spinosus lacks scale-like setae on the dorsal surface whereas Curimopsis species possess them (although they are pretty darn hard to see in mud-covered or abraded specimens).

I looked at the few specimens of these taxa we have here, and while it appears that the critter above looks more like C. spinosus, I'd have to get a better look at whether or not it possessed scale-like setae on the dorsal surface to say for sure. If you have more of these in your yard, it would be easy enough to make the observation and confirm the determination.

Either way, cool beetle.

cheers,