When I first spotted my mystery beetle, I thought perhaps it, and others of its kind, had been responsible for making the burrowing marks under the bark of the many dead Ash trees I saw around me.

But no. Those marks were likely made by the Ash bark beetle (Hylesinus varius), a small brown beetle that you can see on the NatureSpot website here. I’ve yet to find one of those destructive little creatures. And, when I got home and searched online, I struggled to find the name of the tiny metallic-green beetle I had found but, luckily, my friendly local bee expert had a couple of suggestions: ‘The beetle is either Salpingus ruficollis or Vincenzellus ruficollis’.

I checked both those names and decided, from the distinctive shape of the snout, that mine was likely to be Vincenzellus ruficollis, though this hasn’t yet been confirmed. It seems I was fortunate to spot this little critter as the UK Beetles website says, amongst other things, that they are ‘exclusively nocturnal and easy to spot as they crawl around on trunks and branches predating small insects and their early stages. Breeding occurs in the spring and larvae develop under bark, they are predatory and often occur near bark beetle burrows or among masses of mycelia and have been recorded from a wide range of deciduous trees….’