Thanks, for the ID, Frank! I had thought in passing that the beetle looked similar to your Scaphinotus photo. I see now that the mouthparts in my photo are much longer than in Sphaeroderus.

Google image search revealed no images on the web of Scaphinotus andrewsii, though I did find a drawing in How to Know the Beetles. I wonder if in my photo the pronotum isn't too wide and "heart-shaped" compared with the S. andrewsii drawing? I've just posted another photo that shows the pronotum better and how much it tapers toward the rear.

I'll move this to the Guide Page for genus Scaphinotus for now, the first eastern record for the genus to go onto the BugGuide range map. Cool!

Thanks again for your help. Now I'll have to dig out the photos of the other two ground beetles I photographed in that park that day!

--Stephen

Stephen Cresswell
Buckhannon, WV
www.stephencresswell.com

You are right that the pronotum in that picture doesn't look quite right for andrewsii. (believe it or not there is a photo of that species in Yanega's longhorn book in the "not a longhorn section" - scaphinotus beetles do tend to have very long thin antennae). The pronotum sort of looks like S. viduus but really there are quite a few species that it could be. How big was it? Unfortunately I don't think I have much more to add. We need a Scaphinotus expert here.

Frank, would you agree this resembles ridingsii rather than andrewsii? I've been trying to better understand the Steniridia species lately, and this photo has been messing with me.
That smooth, cordate pronotum, the regularity of the elytral intervals, plus that millipede for scale (suggesting this is a pretty small scaph) make me think it's ridingsii.

It'd be kind of a shame if I was right, since this picture was published in "Beetles of Eastern N. America" as 'S. andrews*ii'.

Yes, the overall shape and smaller size (relative to that species of millipede) definitely point to S.ridingsii. I sort of forgot about this bug, but over the last few years have read Valentine's paper and visited the huge Steniridia collection at the Carnegie. Also, I collected both species for the first time this summer near Hillsboro,WV. The pronotum of S.andrewsii is quite variable throughout its range but I think the suspecies in that part of WV (either mutabilis or germari) doesn't have such a heart-shaped pronotum like S.r.monongahelae does.