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Photo#489082
Ground beetle 10.05.07 - Dromius piceus

Ground beetle 10.05.07 - Dromius piceus
Chantilly, Fairfax County, Virginia, USA
May 7, 2010
Size: ~ 8 mm
My best guess is Cymindis (1). Any chance to species ID?

Images of this individual: tag all
Ground beetle 10.05.07 - Dromius piceus Ground beetle 10.05.07 - Dromius piceus Ground beetle 10.05.07 - Dromius piceus

Moved

Thanks, Peter!
Moved from Ground Beetles.

Cymindis platicollis
fits these images. Any other ideas?

 
Dromius piceus?
elytra more elongated, parallel-sided, truncated perpendicularly to suture [vs obliquely-sinuate], pronotum, esp. the explanate margins, somewhat narrower....

 
Yes, Dromius piceus
is a better fit in retrospect thanks to your astute comments. Once again I'm impressed on how different the two species in question appear when real specimens are placed side-by-side under the scope. For one thing, the size difference is mutually exclusive (no overlap in body length). I wonder how many more such images wanting Cymindis vs Dromius are currently posted on BugGuide?

 
just pulled another Dromius from the Cymindis page
...where it was placed by yours truly, too
figuring out stuff like this without the benefit of side-by-side comparison is fantastic practice that really sharpens identification skills; it’s even harder than telling beetles to species in the field (unarmed eye), for which i was brutally trained by my mentors as a kid --but that was, of course, long before i migrated to the western hemisphere.
switching to grayscale images would be a further step in mastering the subject

 
Thank you both!
^^

Moved
Moved from Beetles.

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