So what is this?

[fantasticp]

Someone left it in my drawer at work since I am supposed to know what every bug that crawls into the building is. All I have is my cameraphone, but the pic can show the basic shape, and I can describe the details. Can't say I've seen one before. I am in Southern California. It has 6 legs, and 2 body sections after the head. The head is very ant-like. There are 2 stub wings, and there are 6 layered segments that are below the wings (possibly some under the wings). There is a ridge that runs on both sides of the layered segments left and right like a decorative border. There are 11 segments to the antennae best I can count (ten plus the big one attatched to the head) Any ideas? Ask some questions I have him/her right here.

Oh, and there is a defined neck segment (like a ringfurrow on a centipede?-have no idea what to call it)

EDIT:Great. I tried to edit to a better pic, but now the pic won't show up at all and I look like a moron. Got it to work now.-phew-

 

[Widowman10]

maybe a blister beetle? hard to tell from the pic. just throwin that out there... google that and let us know!!

 

[fantasticp]

maybe a blister beetle? hard to tell from the pic. just throwin that out there... google that and let us know!!

All of the blister beetle pics seem much more round bodied. This one is kind of flatish like an underfed hisser on the backend.

 

[fantasticp]

I might've found a pic of a dead one. I think it's this one. No common name though. I can't find a common name anywhere.

http://www.sbnature.org/collections/invert/entom/img/11848hadrocrass.jpg

Hadrotes crassus (Staphylinidae)

Also found:

http://www.archive.org/stream/occasionalpapers21937sand/occasionalpapers21937sand_djvu.txt

"Hadrotes crassus (Mann.) (4557)

Found under debris in damp places around San Diego in
the spring and summer. "Taken on the sea beach, San
Diego, not numerous." Fall, 1901. "

No info on what its larvae eat that I could find anywhere either. The person who put it in my drawer's only info was that it was "vicious and tried to attack!"

 

[GideonSmith08]

Maybe some kind of rove beetle?

 

[tjmi2000]

Looks a lot like a rove beetle.

 

[toolrick]

This picture looks like the bug you have posted:

http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Fossilgroups/coleop1/devils.jpg

Does it sting???