In honor of Margaret Thayer and Al Newton’s visit to the PNW this week, the Beetle of the Week is a staphylinid. It’s Thinopinus pictus, a large rove beetle (family Staphylinidae) that lives on the sandy beaches of the Pacific Ocean. It is common in Oregon, but one only tends to see it at night.
Thinopinus were common on the beaches near the mouth of the Salmon River, north of Lincoln City, Oregon, in early October.
David Maddison
The Subulate Palpomere 
hey…those sand dunes look strangely familiar…. 🙂
How timely -The good side of the Information Age!
Someone just sent me (living in the bubble of being an ant taxonomist!) a picture of one of these from Washington, and I was baffled, particularly by its pale color and rather pupoid elytra. But the bug social media came through and directed me here.