This species is generally common across the entire Palaearctic region, extending south into North Africa and Asia Minor and north to the UK and the far north of Scandinavia, it is abundant throughout Wales and southeast and central England, more local and scattered in the West Country and the north of England, and sporadic and rare further north to Orkney and across Northern Ireland. Typical habitats include anywhere the host plants are common, parks, gardens, woodland, agricultural land and coastal dunes etc and they are often abundant on disturbed ground, they are associated with a range of Polygonaceae but in the UK the usual hosts are the larger docks, especially Broad-leaved Dock (Rumex obtusifolius L.) but occasionally Curly Dock  (R. crispus L.) and the various hybrids, adults overwinter among tussocks or under matted leaves around host plants but they are active on the underside of old leaves during mild spells and so may be recorded throughout the winter, they become active from the first warm days of spring and remain so late into the autumn. Mating occurs in spring and early summer following a period of feeding on host foliage and females lay eggs into small cavities they chew into stems. Larvae feed entirely within the stems, roots or at the base of large petioles leaving discoloured brown mines or sometimes causing galls as they go, they pass through three instars and are fully developed within six to eight weeks. Pupation occurs within a chamber excavated by the larvae in the stems etc. and adults emerge within a week or two, new generation adults appear over a long season from late spring but there is thought to be only a single generation each year. Adults are easily sampled at any time of year by searching foliage or taking litter samples from around the host plants but they are very similar to the following species and will need to be examined very carefully in the field with a good lens, see below.

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2.5-3.5mm. Very distinctive due to the large size, broad and rather flat rostrum, bicoloured body and elongate-oval elytra. Forebody black or with a weak metallic blue lustre, elytra bright metallic blue or sometimes greenish, violate or coppery, and legs black or weakly metallic blue. Head with weakly convex eyes and long diverging temples, strongly and densely punctured and with a variable impression between the eyes. Rostrum finely punctured throughout, more densely so in front of the antennae insertions, in the male weakly curved and as long as the pronotum, in the female more strongly curved and a little longer than the pronotum. Antennae inserted about the middle of the rostrum, two basal segments long and broad, the second distinctly wider than the third, funicular segments progressively shorter and broader to a compact and pointed 3-segmented club. Pronotum slightly elongate and distinctly and evenly curved laterally, surface convex or slightly flattened across the disc and with a variable median longitudinal impression in the basal third, the punctures wide, shallow and well-separated. Metasternum and basal abdominal sternites strongly and quite densely punctured. Elytra slightly wider across the base than the base of the pronotum, with rounded shoulders and evenly curved laterally to a continuously-rounded apical margin, surface with well-impressed and punctured striae; the sutural stria usually abbreviated about the apex of the scutellum, interstices much broader than the striae, each with two or three rows of very fine hairs. Legs long and robust, the middle and hind tibiae produced apically into an external tooth, the front tibiae simply rounded or nearly so. Basal segment of male hind tarsi with a small internal tooth, corresponding segment in the female simple.