Description: A large (15-19mm) dull black ground beetle with very narrow fore parts, specially adapted to feeding on snails in their shells. Adults live under rotten logs in woodland but common also in upland heather moor.

NI account: Widely distributed and common in Ireland but perhaps particularly so in the north. The map shows strong clustering around pitfall sites on upland peat.

Ecology: In Ireland primarily a forest species but also found in heather moors up to moderate altitudes. A ready coloniser of spruce plantations on deep peat (Day & Carthy, 1988). In Europe, this species is northern and montane, particularly in the east, and has been recorded from the Finnish and Russian Taiga. The mouth-parts are adapted to predate snails and slugs, and it is common in shaded places wherever there is an abundance of prey.

Distribution: A European Boreo-temperate species (53), found widely from the North Cape to the Pyrenees and eastwards to the western part of Russia.

Similar Species: Extremely characteristic

Key Identification Features:

• Large fore-parts, particularly pronotum, narrow
• Palpi elongate, end joint axe-shaped
• Body large, black, dull

Distribution Map from NBN: Cychrus caraboides at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Cychrus caraboides at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Cychrus caraboides | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Cychrus

Thumbnails for genus Cychrus