A moderate-sized beetle (11-15mm) with a black or dark red-brown body. Legs red to mid-brown legs but femora and tibia may be darkened at their tips. The pronotum is strongly contracted and sinuate to the sharp rear angles, with a wide side border where they meet a ridge at the edge of the foveae.

with a detailed dorsal image

A good quality image may be sufficient, otherwise explain how the beetle was identified.

A seed-eating species, commonest in dry waste places and dry grassland or arable land where it lives under stones.

July to October

It is a nocturnal, feeding on seeds of Compositae (Daisy family).

Common throughout Britain.

Fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. There were a total of 70 VC55 records for this species up to March 2015.