Description: Large (20-30mm) black ground beetle with metallic purple or red margins to the elytra and pronotum. Very similar to problematicus and possibly confused with that species in some records. Inhabits gardens and arable, living under stones, loose bark and in plant litter. Old records only, doubtfully Irish.

NI account: This species is excluded from the Irish list for the reasons given by Speight et al. (1983). There are five 19th century Irish records (Johnson & Halbert (1902) and one 20th century record (Donisthorpe, 1903). Confusion with the common Irish species C. problematicus was evidently rife among early collectors, and the only specimens in the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin or the Ulster Museum, relate to the Rathlin, Antrim and Portsalon records of Hardy (1897) and Standen (in Johnson & Halbert, 1902). These are excluded because of doubt about the provenance of the specimens concerned. None of Hardy's Rathlin records for rare Irish species have been authenticated by other collectors although there has been substantial recent recording, including a pitfall-trap monitoring scheme on the island. The single 20th century Irish record of Donisthorpe (1903), for Carrantuohill, Kerry, the highest mountain in Ireland, is also in doubt, as C. problematicus is common there, but C. violaceus has been seen by no-one else, and we have not seen reference material. There are no modern records for anywhere in Ireland, so the very limited evidence suggests that C. violaceus is at best only a vagrant, despite being widespread in Britain. Reasons given for its absence must be speculative, but may possibly be related to that sometimes postulated for the absence of the common shrew Sorex araneus L. from Ireland. The latter is a species which, like C. violaceus, more or less relies on earthworms as food, and so would have found little suitable ground in Ireland for most of the Postglacial period when peat was widespread, and mineral soils (with earthworms) relatively localised, even if a convenient means of transport from Britain were available. At any rate, the related but more broadly insectivorous pygmy shrew Sorex minutus L. is a common Irish mammal, and the common shrew is absent. This does not account for the continued absence of both the common shrew and C. violaceus into modern times, when cultivation has rendered edaphic conditions closer to their requirements than existed formerly. It is likely there is a climatic constraint as well.

Distribution: A Eurosiberian Boreo-temperate species (54), widely distributed across Europe including Scandinavia and the whole of Britain (Luff, 1998).

Similar Species: Carabus glabratus: less dull; larger and much more convex; metallic reflections always weak C. problematicus: less dull; more convex; elytra sculpture stronger and granulae forming discernible lines

Key Identification Features:

• Very large, with sculptured elytra and metallic reflections
• Elytral sculpture irregularly granulate
• Surface dull, black with reddish- or violaceous-metallic reflections along margins
• Body slender, depressed and parallel-sided

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

iNaturalist: Carabus violaceus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

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

Thumbnails for genus Carabus