Unravelling a beetle mystery

I WAS out in the garden the other day and I picked up a bucket that hadn’t been moved for months.

There was the usual collection of wildlife under it, including a shiny black beetle.

Beetles are a nightmare for amateur naturalists. Of all known life-forms 25% are beetles, which is about 400,000 species. And the experts reckon that there are more than that number still waiting to be discovered, described and named. Scientists have divided this huge number of species into separate families, which helps a little. I studied my beetle. It had rounded, slightly flattened wing cases with fine grooves from front to back and there was a reddish tinge to its six legs. It was about 15mm long. I’d put it in the bucket where it but made no attempt to fly away. This made me think it might be flightless.