Acalles misellus Boheman, 1844

Generally considered rare through much of its European range e.g. there is only a single record from Poland, this species is very likely under-recorded due to its nocturnal and cryptic lifestyle, it is widespread though extremely local through northern and Western Europe from the Pyrenees to southern Fennoscandia and the UK. Here it is local and sometimes locally common throughout southern England and Wales north to The Wash, becoming much more sporadic and rare further north to southern Scotland. Adults typically occur in deciduous or mixed woodland with plenty of trees in various stages of decay but may also occur on isolated trees in parkland or gardens and are often associated with dead ivy and hawthorn, they have been recorded from a wide range of deciduous trees including ash, beech, chestnut, lime, oak, hazel, birch, box and sycamore, on the continent also from pine and we have found them beneath areas of dead bark on an otherwise healthy yew tree in a Watford wood. Adults occur year-round, they probably overwinter mainly in leaf-litter and they become active early in the year, little is known of their biology but breeding is thought to occur in the spring with larvae developing in the bark on twigs and small branches and producing new-generation adults in the autumn. Adults are nocturnal and generally remain on dead wood where they may be very difficult to see but on warm evenings they may be swept or beaten from foliage, they occur in litter samples through the winter and may sometimes be found in numbers by beating dead branches in the autumn.

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1.9-3.0mm Elongate with the pronotum and elytra separately rounded and the head only narrowly visible from above, covered with dense broad recumbent scales and with narrower erect scales which are obvious around the margins. Head and pronotum with a mix of dark and pale scales, basal two-thirds of elytra similar but the apical third either entirely pale or with a transverse band of pale scales. Base of head inserted into the pronotum, usually to the posterior margin of the eyes, and obscured by overlapping scales on the pronotal margin, rostrum long and only weakly curved, sexual differences slight but slightly longer in the female. Pronotum quadrate or slightly elongate, lateral margins rounded and smoothly constricted towards the base and in the apical third, disc smoothly convex and without a longitudinal impression, basal margin only a little broader than the apical margin.  Elytra elongate and smoothly rounded from sloping shoulders to a continuously curved apical margin, with narrow striae that are usually visible among the dense recumbent scales, colour usually variegated but often with several variously complete bands of pale and dark scales. Femora and tibiae with light and dark recumbent and erect scales, often appearing variegated, tarsi without scales.