Big grave beetle

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Big grave beetle
Great burial beetle (Pterostichus niger)

Great burial beetle ( Pterostichus niger )

Systematics
Superclass : Six-footed (Hexapoda)
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Beetle (Coleoptera)
Family : Ground beetle (Carabidae)
Genre : Grave beetle ( Pterostichus )
Type : Big grave beetle
Scientific name
Pterostichus niger
( Schaller , 1783)

The great burial beetle or striped shoulder runner ( Pterostichus niger ) is a beetle from the ground beetle family .

features

The beetles are 15 to 21 millimeters long and have a shiny black body. Only the antennae and the tarsi are slightly brown in color. The base and the front edge of the broad pronotum are almost equally wide. The upper wings are deeply longitudinally grooved and have their widest point about in the last third. The tarsi are not hairy on the underside. This distinguishes the animals from the similar common grave beetle ( Pterostichus melanarius ), whose tarsi have hairs on the underside.

Occurrence

The animals occur in Europe and Asia , except in the far north, east over Iran to Siberia , from low altitudes to the mountains up to about 2,000 meters above sea level. Here is P. niger in Central Europe one of the most common species of the genus, especially at higher elevations. They live in deciduous forests , in fields, on the banks of waters and also on the coast under stones, bark or moss.

Way of life

The nocturnal adults feed predatory and hunt various small insects on and in the ground , which are digested and sucked out before the mouth. The larvae , which live very similarly to the adult beetles, pupate after a few months in a pupa cradle in the ground. The beetles that hatch appear in autumn and overwinter in the ground. But there are also larvae that overwinter.

literature

  • Ekkehard Wachmann , Ralph Platen, Dieter Barndt: Ground beetles - observation, way of life . Naturbuch Verlag, Augsburg 1995, ISBN 3-89440-125-7 .
  • Jiři Zahradnik, Irmgard Jung, Dieter Jung et al .: Beetles of Central and Northwestern Europe. Parey, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-490-27118-1 .

Web links

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