I’m fairly sure that this little creature, which we saw crossing our path at RHS Rosemoor yesterday, was a violet oil beetle (Meloe violaceus):

I couldn’t identify it from memory but, looking at the photos today, it struck me that I could try using the Seek app on my phone. This is a tool that has been developed by iNaturalist for Android and iOS devices and is generally very good at identifying flora and fauna of interest. One of the challenges when out in the wild is getting a good picture of a moving subject but, pointing the phone at my computer screen, it made short work of suggesting what type of bug it is. As I was at my computer, I did some further searchign and I think it is pretty likely to be accurate. There is a small chance it might be a black oil beetle instead but I wonder if some of the sites I visited have got their own photos mixed up and Seek’s opinion seems to concur with the majority.

I’m sure it is an oil beetle in any case and, whichever is the case, I’m glad I didn’t pick it up to move it off the path as apparently one of the characteristics of all oil beetles (who are part of a wider group of ‘blister beetles’) is to exude a poisonous liquid with unpleasant side effects that have led to the group name.

I will have to remember this trick for future use – if I can’t get a good ID in the wild, it might be worth taking a few photos (especially if I have a better camera than my phone one to hand) and trying again back at base.