Description: Large, (23-30mm) dull metallic black, ground beetle with blue flashes along the margins of the prontotum and elytra. Faintly metallic all-blue specimens occur occasionally. Lives among heather and litter on well-vegetated upland peat, particularly on raised bogs.

NI account: Widespread in areas of hill peat. Very local but common where it occurs.

Ecology: Primarily a montane species, occupying wetter blanket peat on the whole than C. arvensis. Koch (1992) describes it as stenotopic silvicolous in central Europe. In northern Europe it is a characteristic member of the boreal forest fauna. In the British Isles, dwarf shrub (Calluna) heath is favoured. Quite often day active and encountered perambulating across open Sphagnum pillows on the bog surface.

Distribution: A European Boreo-arctic Montane species (23), widespread in central and northern Europe north to the Arctic Circle.

Similar Species: (Carabus violaceus: slender, parallel-sided and less convex; upper surface dull with brighter metallic colouration at margins; penultimate segment of labial palpi with 3-7 setae)

Key Identification Features:

• Very large, with sculptured elytra and metallic reflections
• Elytral sculpture irregular, very weakly granulate, ridges, if present, very weak
• Big, broad and convex
• Upper surface black and weakly shiny, with weak steel-blue lustre at margins, or over the whole surface
• Penultimate segment of labial palpi usually with 2 setae, sometimes 3

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

iNaturalist: Carabus glabratus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Carabus glabratus | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Carabus

Thumbnails for genus Carabus