The other day I had to evict this beast from the kitchen. Since it feeds on the seeds of members of the pea family I'm not sure how it ended up inside our house.
Being given a lift out the door.
Known as a Broad-headed Bug in English, or Camptope des genêts in French, the scientific name is Camptopus lateralis. They are quite abundant and I have encountered them before, on gorse at la Cabane, the Zone d'Interêt Ecologique, Faunistique et Floristique (ZNIEFF) that I monitor.
One I photographed a couple of years ago.
The distinguishing characters are a head that is broader than the pronotum, a white line through the head, four segments in the antennae, clear margins on the sides, enlarged and spiny hind femurs, very curved hind tibiae, a tiny white dot at the apex of the pronotum (thorax) and the scutellum (body part next to the thorax and over the base of the abdomen), and an overall reddish brown coloration. They are about 12 mm long.
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