Shiny gold ground beetle
| Shiny gold ground beetle | ||||||||||||
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Shiny golden ground beetle ( Carabus auronitens ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Carabus auronitens | ||||||||||||
| Fabricius , 1792 |
The shiny gold ground beetle ( Carabus auronitens ) is a beetle from the family of ground beetles (Carabidae).
features
The beetles are 18 to 32 millimeters long. Their wing covers and head are gold, red, gold green or rarely blue shining, narrow at the base pronotum is reddish, coppery colored. The coloring of the animals is very variable. The upper wings each have three strong, dark longitudinal ribs, between these the surface is grained. The legs are black, only the thighs (femora) are colored red. The antennae are black, only the first link is red. The gold-shimmering ground beetle differs from the similar golden ground beetle ( Carabus auratus ) mainly in its longitudinal ribs, which in the similar species are green-golden in color. The first four antenna elements are also red in this species.
Similar species
- Golden ground beetle ( Carabus auratus )
- Dove beetle ( Carabus nitens )
Occurrence
The animals are found in Central , Eastern and Western Europe . They are absent in northern Europe and in the west south of the Pyrenees . They live in damp and cool deciduous and mixed forests , in high altitudes also in unforested areas. They can be found under loose bark, in dead wood and in moss, especially in the mountains and the foreland, up to a maximum height of around 2,500 meters. In Western Europe they can also be found in the plain. They occur between May and September.
Way of life
The mainly nocturnal adults feed predatory on small animals such as B. snails , worms and insects . They climb trees up to about six meters high. The larvae pupate after shedding their skin three times. The next generation of beetles hatch from the pupae from late summer or early autumn . These animals overwinter under bark or between cracks in dead wood or in tree stumps and are already active early next year.
literature
- Reichholf-Riehm, Helgard: Insects; 1984, Munich
- Ekkehard Wachmann , Ralph Platen, Dieter Barndt: Ground beetle - observation, way of life , Naturbuch-Verlag Augsburg, 1995, ISBN 3-894-40125-7
- Jiři Zahradnik, Irmgard Jung, Dieter Jung et al .: Beetles of Central and Northwestern Europe. Parey, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-490-27118-1 .
- Schwöppe, M., M. Kreuels, et al. (1998). On the question of the historical or ecological limitation of the occurrence of a forest-dwelling, winged carabid species: translocation experiments under controlled conditions with Carabus auronitens in the Münsterland . Treatises from the Westphalian Museum of Natural History 60 (1): 1-77. ( PDF )
