Sciodrepoides Hatch, 1933

This is among the most common and widespread of the European leiodids, it is generally common from the northern Mediterranean to the UK and the far north of Fennoscandia and extends east into Asia Minor and Russia, it is also widespread in the east, extending from Mongolia and Siberia to China, Japan and Korea although this may not be continuous with the western Palaearctic distribution, and it was formally listed from Canada (and possibly the United States) but has now been removed through lack of source material. It is common throughout England and Wales, though less so in the West Country, and very local and rare further north to the Scottish Highlands and in Northern Ireland. Adults are likely to occur wherever carrion appears but they show a preference for open habitats such as grassland and heathland, they fly well and may travel considerable distances to find carrion but they also feed on decaying plant and fungal material though not in dung, they are often recorded from mammal and bird nests and they usually occur in numbers. They are active over a long season from February or March and peak in abundance during early summer, breeding occurs in spring and early summer and they often breed together in numbers. Eggs are laid singly or into the ground beneath carrion or among compost etc and larvae emerge after a day or two, they feed directly on the host material although they may also be predaceous, and they develop very quickly; the first instar lasts about a day, the second for about two days and the third, and final instar, lasts about a week. The fully-grown final instar larvae dig into the soil to construct round cell from debris and soil particles in which to pupate, and the pupal stage lasts for about six days. Under good conditions the entire cycle from egg to adult takes about twenty days. New generation adults appear from June, they are active through the summer but it is not known whether they breed before the autumn, they probably overwinter in the ground or among leaf-litter etc as adults have been recorded through the winter on the continent. They sometimes occur in flight-interception traps and they may be swept from grassland but sampling is easiest using baited pitfall traps or carrion; they are very likely to turn up at any carrion but they naturally seem to prefer small mammal and bird carcases, they will usually occur in numbers along with many other beetles and they often come to disturbed sites such as domestic gardens.

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2.6-3.4 mm. Elongate-oval, moderately convex and discontinuous in outline, entirely pale to dark brown, usually with the forebody a little darker than the elytra, legs usually paler than the body, antennae dark with three basal segments and the apex of the terminal segment pale. Dorsal surface with dense, fine and backwardly-produced punctures that give the impression of forming transverse series throughout, and with fine pale or golden pubescence throughout. Head transverse, with a well-defined occipital crest, hypognathous, smoothly convex, with convex and protruding eyes, frontoclypeal suture absent or only weakly defined. Maxillary palps slender, the terminal segment narrow and pointed. Antennae inserted laterally in front of the eyes, gradually thickened to a long, 5-segmented club, segments 1-3 elongate, 4-6 short and transverse, the eighth shorter and slightly narrower than the adjacent segments. Pronotum transverse, widest towards the base and narrowed to a rounded apical margin (from above), posterior angles slightly acute, basal margin weakly sinuate and surface evenly convex. Elytra very slightly narrower across the base than the base of the pronotum, with rounded shoulders and evenly curved to separately-rounded apical margins, without striae but with a sutural striae, at least in the apical half. Legs long and slender, all tibiae with two apical spurs. Front tarsi expanded in both sexes. Apical margin of the fifth abdominal sternite with a median circular incision in the female.