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Found this little guy crawling around the back garden - South Coast of the UK.

First shot

Second shot

The closest things I could find online (with an admittedly weak knowledge of where to look up these things, aside a google search for red beetle) were the red flour beetles. However, it doesn't look quite like what we had, this being more stockier, with a dark head, and more splayed feelers.

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This does not look like a red flour beetle, but more like some species of Melolontha, possibly a cockchafer. For more specific information, we would need to know, where your back garden is and maybe something to scale the bug. I would go for Melolontha melolontha, the common cockchafer. Of the two other european species of Melolontha, M. hippocastani usually has a black edge of the elytra (see this picture), which this one doesn't seem to have, and M. pectoralis is very rare and mostly (only?) found in Germany.

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  • $\begingroup$ I've added some location information - meant to in the original post, but forgot! But I'm on the south coast of the UK $\endgroup$ – Psytronic Jun 17 '15 at 13:26
  • $\begingroup$ Then it is from my understanding perfectly normal environment for a Melolontha melolontha. $\endgroup$ – skymningen Jun 17 '15 at 13:45
  • $\begingroup$ M. hippocastani usually has a black edge of the elytra (which this one doesn't seem to have), which makes M. melolontha even more likely. M. pectoralis is very rare and mostly (only?) found in Germany. I've added this info to your answer and hope you are fine with this. $\endgroup$ – fileunderwater Jun 17 '15 at 14:32
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I totally agree with skymningen, definitely a cockchafer

cockchafer

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