Field tiger beetle
| Field tiger beetle | ||||||||||||
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Field tiger beetle ( Cicindela campestris ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Cicindela campestris | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
The Cicindela campestris or the sand box rotor ( Cicindela campestris ) is a beetles from the subfamily of the Sandlaufkäfer (Cicindelinae).
features
The beetles are 10 to 15 millimeters long and are built quite flat. Their body is usually bright green, but there are also blue and brown color morphs . The antennae, abdomen and abdomen are colored bright copper-red. The long and slender legs are in the upper part of the same color to the Tarsen but out they are green. On each of the wings there is a yellowish-white spot behind the center, as well as three to five other spots of the same color on the edge. The coloring and drawing varies with the different subspecies. The pronotum is narrower than the head with its large, curved compound eyes , the delicate antennae, the mighty white to light brown upper lip and the impressive upper jaws below with the needle-sharp teeth. The wings with well-developed shoulders are wider than the head, run almost parallel and end together in a flat curve.
Occurrence
The species is widespread in the Palearctic , north to Lapland . It lives in sunny, dry areas, especially with sandy and clay soils from the plains to the mountains. You can find them from April to September.
Way of life
The well-developed, large eyes and long, slender legs identify the animals as hunters. You can run surprisingly fast for short distances, but then stop again. If one approaches impetuously, they fly open. However, they fly a few meters at most and then sit down so that they face the pursuer. This game is repeated several times until the beetle changes its direction of escape and flies back in an arc, or crawls into the grass. Deliberate pursuit shows that the beetle's strength clearly decreases when the beetle tries several times to evade the pursuit by flying.
The beetle sees very well with its eyes at close range, so that it can surprise even fleeting prey. It feeds on arachnids and small insects , whose exoskeleton it easily penetrates with its sharp teeth and then sucks them out. He prefers open areas with little or no vegetation for his hunt, e.g. B. sandy or clayey paths on which take-off and landing are easy, or broken embankments exposed to the sun. The beetles are usually found in large numbers in such habitats. This is where they lay their eggs.
The larvae live in self-dug earth passages, a few centimeters in diameter and up to 40 centimeters deep, in the same habitat. Like adult animals, they feed predatory. In case of danger, they move to safety by retreating into their passage, otherwise they sit directly at the opening that they close with the pronotum and head. The large, pointed pliers protrude outwards. If a prey approaches about four centimeters away, it is grabbed and then sucked out. Not only the construction of the forceps and the breastplate are tailored to their lifestyle, but also the legs with the claws and a hump with a horny hook pointing forward on the fifth dorsal segment enables them to move freely in their gait. The larva hibernates once or even several times until it pupates at the bottom of its cave. The beetles hatch in autumn. As the habitats of the field tiger beetle decline, the species is becoming increasingly rare. In Germany it is therefore not only under nature protection , but is a specially protected species according to the Federal Species Protection Ordinance.
literature
- Ekkehard Wachmann , Ralph Platen, Dieter Barndt: Ground beetle - observation, way of life , Naturbuch-Verlag Augsburg, 1995, ISBN 3-894-40125-7
- Adolf Horion: Beetle science for nature lovers . Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1949
- Svatopluk Bílý: Coléoptères, adaptation française Verlag Gründ 1990; ISBN 2-7000-1824-9
- Jiři Zahradnik, Irmgard Jung, Dieter Jung et al .: Beetles of Central and Northwestern Europe. Parey, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-490-27118-1
Web links
- Welcome to Cicindela.de
- Cicindela campestris L. - Field tiger beetle ( Memento from July 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- www.natur-in-nrw.de