Exercising beetle for ID please!

[pammosley]

Any help much appreciated on this one. I have trawled a site trying to ID his family but can`t find it
My daughter took the photos, the exercising beetle is brilliant I think (biased!)

[Fauna]

It looks like a Choleva sp.

I've come across a few that looks similar to your specimen, i've never really paid much attention to them...i believe they can be really difficult to id to species level (may be wrong?).

Forgot to add.

Congratulate your daughter on this shot...it looks like the beetle is practicing for the Men in Black video

[pammosley]

Thanks Chris for your help. I`ve had a google & Choleva Sp looks good, maybe Oblonga?

I`ve passed your comments on to my daughter, she loves taking insect photos

[Klaas Reißmann]

Genus Choleva is right, a male. There is no more to say. Maybe C. oblonga, maybe C. angustata, maybe another species. We would need the downside, the hindlegs (Trochanter) for identification and a few just from above. But it is not for sure, that I can identify than.

Regards
Klaas

Edit: Some more information: Choleva is a genus mostly found in autumn and winter and mostly found in the nests of vertebrates like mice, mole and others. Some are found in caves (Choleva septentrionalis) living of the dung of bats. Therefor we call them "Nestkäfer" (nestbeetles) in Germany.

[pammosley]

Thanks for the help Klaas, I`m happy just to know what family he is. That`s great info as well, Thanks for taking the time to reply