Nose To The Ground Beetle

I was wearing my togging kneepads and crawling around, nose to the ground on my mother's terrace, rooting out weeds from the paving, when I spotted this beetle hanging from a bin.

I thought it was dead but in fact it was completely tangled in a spider's web. No sign of the spider. I spent a long time carefully teasing the spider silk from its body and it hobbled away. I do hope the spider hadn't already injected it with venom.

It is larger than your average black beetle. I'm very familiar with those. My daughter was born at home on 22nd June and her birth coincided with the appearance of lots of shiny black ground beetles. I made her a black beetle birthday card a couple of years ago. Strange, we haven't seen many this year.

This beetle today was much bigger and had a faint purple line around the upper edge of its wing cases. (Not visible in the pic.) I'm wondering if it could be a violet ground beetle, though somehow it doesn't look the right shape?

This was the only photograph that I took today, I couldn't be wielding the camera with so much to do at the house. We've been dressing it but one can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. :)